Apparatus and Method for Generating a Coded Video Sequence and for Decoding a Coded Video Sequence by Using an Intermediate Layer Residual Value Prediction

ABSTRACT

A video coder performs a motion-compensated prediction both in the base layer and in an enhancement layer to determine motion data of the enhancement layer by using the motion data from the base layer and/or to predict sequences of residual error pictures after the motion-compensated prediction in the enhancement layer by using sequences of residual error pictures from the base layer via an intermediate layer predictor. On the decoder side, an intermediate layer combiner is used for canceling this intermediate layer prediction. Thereby, the data rate is improved compared to scalability schemes without intermediate layer prediction with the same picture quality.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/066,689, filed Feb. 24, 2005, which claims priority from GermanPatent Application No. 102004059978.5, which was filed on Oct. 15, 2004and are all incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to video coding systems and particularlyto scalable video coding systems, which can be used in connection withthe video coding standard H.264/AVC or with new MPEG video codingsystems.

2. Description of the Related Art

The standard H.264/AVC is the result of a video standardization projectof the ITU-T video coding expert group VCEG and the ISO/IEC motionpicture expert group (MPEG). The main goals of this standardizationproject are to provide a clear video coding concept with very goodcompression behavior and at the same time to generate a network-friendlyvideo representation, which comprise both application with “conversationcharacter”, such as video telephony, as well as applications withoutconversion character (storage, broadcast, stream transmission).

Apart from the above-mentioned standard ISO/IEC 14496-10, there is alsoa plurality of publications relating to the standard. Merelyexemplarily, reference is made to “The Emerging H.264-AVC standard”,Ralf Schäfer, Thomas Wiegand and Heiko Schwarz, EBU Technical Review,January 2003. Additionally, the expert publication “Overview of theH.264/AVC Video Coding Standard”, Thomas Wiegand, Gary J. Sullivan,Gesle Bjontegaard and Ajay Lothra, IEEE Transactions on Circuits andSystems for Video Technology, July 2003 as well as the expertpublication “Context-based adaptive Binary Arithmethic Coding in theH.264/AVC Video Compression Standard”, Detlev Marpe, Heiko Schwarz andThomas Wiegand, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for VideoTechnology, September 2003, comprise a detailed overview over differentaspects of the video coding standard.

However, for a better understanding, an overview over the videocoding/decoding algorithm will be given with reference to FIGS. 9 to 11.

FIG. 9 shows a full structure of a video coder, which generally consistsof two different stages. Generally, the first stage, which generallyoperates video-related, generates output data, which are then subject toan entropy coding by a second stage, which is designated by 80 in FIG.9. The data are data 81 a, quantized transformation coefficients 81 b aswell as motion data 81 c, wherein these data 81 a, 81 b, 81 c aresupplied to the entropy coder 80 to generate a coded video signal at theoutput of the entropy coder 80.

Specifically, the input video signal is partitioned and splitted,respectively, into macroblocks, wherein every macroblock has 16×16pixels. Then, the association of the macroblocks to slice groups andslices is chosen, according to which every macroblock of every slice isprocessed by the net of operation blocks as illustrated in FIG. 8. Itshould be noted that an efficient parallel-processing of macroblocks ispossible when different slices exist in a video picture. The associationof macroblocks to slice groups and slices is performed via a block codercontrol 82 in FIG. 8. There are different slices, which are defined asfollows:

I slice: The I slice is a slice wherein all macroblocks of the slice arecoded by using an intra prediction.

P slice: Additionally to the coding types of the I slices, certainmacroblocks of the P slice can also be coded by using an interprediction with at least one motion-compensated prediction signal perprediction block.

B slice: Additionally to the coder types available in the P slice,certain macroblocks of the B slice can also be coded by using an interprediction with two motion-compensated prediction signals per predictionblock.

The above three coder types are very similar to the ones in earlierstandards, but with the exception of using reference pictures, as willbe described below. The following two coder types for slices are new inthe standard H.264/AVC:

SP slice: It is also referred to as switch P slice, which is coded suchthat efficient switching between different precoded pictures is madepossible.

SI slice: The SI slice is also referred to as switch I slice, whichallows an exact adaptation of the macroblocks in a SP slice for a directrandom access and for error recovery purposes.

All in all, slices are a sequence of macroblocks, which are processed inthe order of a raster scan, if not a property of the flexible macroblockordering FMO is used, which is also defined in the standard. A picturecan be partitioned into one or several slices, as illustrated in FIG.11. Thus, a picture is a collection of one or several slices. In thatsense, slices are independent of one another, since their syntaxelements can be analyzed (parsed) from the bit stream, wherein thevalues of the samples can be decoded correctly in the range of thepicture represented by the slice, without requiring data from otherslices, provided that used reference pictures are identical both in thecoder and in the decoder. However, certain information from other slicescan be required to apply the deblocking filter across slice borders.

The FMO characteristic modifies the way how pictures are partitionedinto slices and macroblocks, by using the concept of slice groups. Everyslice group is a set of macroblocks defined by a macroblock to slicegroup mapping, which is specified by the content of a picture parameterset and by certain information from slice headers. This macroblock toslice group mapping consists of a slice group identification number forevery macroblock in the picture, wherein it is specified to which slicegroup the associated macroblock belongs. Every slice group can bepartitioned into one or several slices, so that a slice is a sequence ofmacroblocks within the same slice group, which is processed in the orderof a raster sampling within the set of macroblocks of specific slicegroup.

Every macroblock can be transmitted in one or several coder types,depending on the slice coder type. In all slice coder types, thefollowing types of intra coding are supported, which are referred to asintra_(−4×4) or intra_(−16×16), wherein additionally a chroma predictionmode and an I_(−PCM) prediction mode are supported.

The intra_(−4×4) mode is based on the prediction of every 4×4 chromablock separately and is very well suited for coding parts of a picturewith outstanding details. The intra_(−16×16) mode, on the other hand,performs a prediction of the whole 16×16 chroma block and is more suitedfor coding “soft” regions of a picture.

Additionally to these two chroma prediction types, a separate chromaprediction is performed. As an alternative for intra_(−4×4) andintra_(−16×16), the I_(−4×4) coder type allows that the coder simplyskips the prediction as well as the transformation coding and insteadtransmits the values of the coded samples directly. The I_(−PCM) modehas the following purposes: It allows the coder to represent the valuesof the samples precisely. It provides a way to represent the values ofvery abnormal picture content exactly without data enlargement. Further,it allows to determine a hard boundary for the number of bits, which acoder needs to have for macroblock handling without loss of codingefficiency.

In contrary to earlier video coding standards (namely H.263 plus andMPEG-4 visual), where the intra prediction has been performed in thetransformation domain, the intra prediction in H.264/AVC is alwaysperformed in the spatial domain, by referring to adjacent samples ofpreviously coded blocks, which are on the left of and above,respectively, the block to be predicted (FIG. 10). In certainenvironments, where transmission errors occur, this can cause an errorpropagation, wherein this error propagation takes place due to themotion compensation in intra coded macroblocks. Thus, a limited intracoding mode can be signaled, which enables a prediction of only intracoded adjacent macroblocks.

When the intra_(−4×4) mode is used, every 4×4 block of spatiallyadjacent samples is predicted. The 16 samples of the 4×4 block arepredicted by using previously decoded samples in adjacent blocks. One of9 prediction modes can be used for every 4×4 block. Additionally to the“DC prediction” (where a value is used to predict the whole 4×4 block),8 direction prediction modes are specified. These modes are suitable topredict direction structures in a picture, such as edges in differentangles.

Additionally to the intra macroblock coder types, different predictiveor motion-compensated coder types are specified as P macroblock types.Every P macroblock type corresponds to a specific partition of themacroblock into the block forms, which are used for a motion-compensatedprediction. Partitions with luma block sizes of 16×16, 16×8, 8×8 or 8×16samples are supported by the syntax. In the case of partitions of 8×8samples, an additional syntax element is transmitted for every 8×8partition. This syntax element specifies whether the respective 8×8partition is further partitioned into partitions of 8×4, 4×8 or 4×4 lumasamples and corresponding chroma samples.

The prediction signal for every prediction-coded M×M luma block isobtained by shifting a region of the respective reference picturespecified by a translation motion vector and a picture reference index.Thus, if the macroblock is coded by using four 8×8 partitions, and whenevery 8×8 partition is further partitioned into four 4×4 partitions, amaximum amount of 16 motion vectors for a single P macroblock can betransmitted within the so-called motion field.

The quantization parameter slice QP is used to determine thequantization of the transformation coefficients in H.264/AVC. Theparameter can assume 52 values. These values are disposed such that anincrease of 1 with regard to the quantization parameter means anincrease of the quantization step width by about 12%. This means that anincrease of the quantization parameter by 6 causes an increase of thequantizer step width by exactly a factor of 2. It should be noted that achange of the step size by about 12% also means a reduction of the bitrate by about 12%.

The quantized transformation coefficients of a block are generallysampled in zigzag path and processed by using entropy coding methods.The 2×2 DC coefficients of the chroma component are sampled in rasterscan sequence and all inverse transformation operations within H.264/AVCcan be implemented by using only additions and shift operations of 16bit integer values.

With reference to FIG. 9, the input signal is first partitioned pictureby picture in a video sequence, for every picture, into the macroblockswith 16×16 pixels. Then, every picture is supplied to a subtractor 84,which subtracts the original picture, which is supplied by a decoder 85,which is contained in the coder. The subtraction result, which means theresidual signals in the spatial domain, are now transformed, scaled andquantized (block 86) to obtain the quantized transformation coefficientson line 81 b. For generating the subtraction signal, which is fed intothe subtractor 874, the quantized transformation coefficients are firstagain scaled and inverse transformed (block 87), to be supplied to anadder 88, the output of which feeds the deblocking filter 89, whereinthe output video signal, as, for example, will be decoded by a decoder,can be monitored at the output of the deblocking filter, for example forcontrol purposes (output 90).

By using the decoded output signal at output 90, a motion estimation isperformed in block 91. For motion estimation in block 90, a picture ofthe original video signal is supplied, as seen from FIG. 9. The standardallows two different motion estimations, namely a forward motionestimation and a backward motion estimation. In the forward motionestimation, the motion of the current picture is estimated with regardto the previous picture. In the backward motion estimation, however, themotion of the current picture is estimated by using the future picture.The results of the motion estimation (block 91) are supplied to a motioncompensation block 92, which performs a motion-compensated interprediction, particularly when a switch 93 is switched to the interprediction mode, as it is the case in FIG. 9. If, however, the switch 93is switched to intra frame prediction, an intra frame prediction isperformed by using a block 490. Therefore, the motion data are notrequired, since no motion compensation is performed for an intra frameprediction.

The motion estimation block 91 generates motion data and motion fields,respectively, wherein motion data and motion fields, respectively, whichconsist of motion vectors, are transmitted to the decoder so that acorresponding inverse prediction, which means reconstruction by usingthe transformation coefficients and the motion data, can be performed.It should be noted that in the case of a forward prediction, the motionvector can be calculated from the immediately previous picture and fromseveral previous pictures, respectively. Above that, it should be notedthat in the case of a backward prediction, a current picture can becalculated by using the immediately adjacent future picture and ofcourse also by using further future pictures.

It is a disadvantage of the video coding concept illustrated in FIG. 9that it provides no simple scalability possibility. As known in the art,the term “scalability” means a coder/decoder concept where the coderprovides a scaled data stream. The scaled data stream comprises a basescaling layer as well as one or several enhancement scaling layers. Thebase scaling layer comprises a representation of the signal to be coded,generally with lower quality, but also with lower data rate. Theenhancement scaling layer contains a further representation of the videosignal, which provides a representation with improved quality withregard to the base scaling layer, typically together with therepresentation of the video signal in the base scaling layer. On theother hand, the enhancement scaling layer has, of course, individual bitrequirements, so that the number of bits for representing the signal tobe coded increases with every enhancement layer.

Depending on design and possibilities, a decoder will decode, eitheronly the base scaling layer to provide comparatively qualitatively badrepresentation of the picture signal represented by the coded signal.With every “addition” of a further scaling layer, however, the decodercan improve the quality of the signal step by step (at the expense ofthe bit rate).

Depending on the implementation and the transmission channel from acoder to a decoder, at least the base scaling layer is transmitted,since the bit rate of the base scaling layer is typically so low thatalso a so far limited transmission channel will be sufficient. If thetransmission channel allows no more bandwidth for the application, onlythe base scaling layer but no enhancement scaling layer will betransmitted. As a consequence, the decoder can generate merely a lowquality representation of the picture signal. Compared to the unscaledcase, where the data rate would have been so high that a transmissionsystem would not have been possible, the low quality representation isadvantageous. If the transmission channel allows the transmission of oneor several enhancement layers, the coder will transmit one or severalenhancement layers to the decoder, so that it can increase the qualityof the output video signal step by step, depending on the request.

With regard to the coding of video sequences, two different scalings canbe distinguished. One scaling is a temporal scaling, in so far that notall video frames of a video sequence are transmitted, but that forreducing the data rate, for example, only every second frame, everythird frame, every fourth frame, etc. is transmitted.

The other scaling is the SNR scalability (SNR=signal to noise ratio),wherein every scaling layer, e.g. both the base scaling layer and thefirst, second, third, . . . enhancement scaling layer comprise all timeinformation, but with varying quality. Thus, the base scaling layerwould have a low data rate, but a low signal noise ratio, wherein thissignal noise ratio can then be improved step by step by adding oneenhancement scaling layer each.

The coder concept illustrated in FIG. 9 is problematic in that it isbased on the fact that merely residual values are generated by thesubtracter 84, and are then processed. These residual values arecalculated based on prediction algorithms, in the arrangement shown inFIG. 9, which forms a closed loop by using the blocks 86, 87, 88, 89,93, 94 and 84, wherein a quantization parameter enters the closed loop,which means in blocks 86, 87. If now a simple SNR scalability would beimplemented in that for example every predicted residual signal isquantized first with a coarse quantizer step width, and then quantizedstep by step with finer quantizer step widths, by using enhancementlayers, this would have the following consequences. Due to the inversequantization and the prediction, particularly with regard to the motionestimation (block 91) and the motion compensation (block 92), which takeplace by using the original picture on the one hand and the quantizedpicture on the other hand, a “diverging” of the quantizer step widthsresults both in the coder and the decoder. This leads to the fact thatthe generation of the enhancement scaling layers on the coder sidebecomes very problematic. Further, processing the enhancement scalinglayers on the decoder side becomes impossible, at least with regard tothe elements defined in the standard H.264/AVC. The reason therefore isthe closed loop in the video coder illustrated with regard to FIG. 9,wherein the quantization is contained.

In the standardization document JVT-I 032 μl titled “SNR-ScalableExtension of H.264/AVC”, Heiko Schwarz, Detlev Marpe and Thomas Wiegand,presented in the ninth JVT meeting from 2^(nd) to 5^(th) Dec. 2003 inSan Diego, a scalable extension to H.264/AVC is presented, whichcomprises a scalability both with regard to time and signal noise ratio(with equal or different temporal accuracy). Therefore, a liftingrepresentation of time subband partitions is introduced, which allowsthe usage of known methods for motion-compensated prediction.

Wavelet based video coder algorithms, wherein lifting implementationsare used for the wavelet analysis and for wavelet synthesis, aredescribed in J.-R. Ohm, “Complexity and delay analysis of MCTFinterframe wavelet structures”, ISO/IECJTC1/WG11 Doc. M8520, July 2002.Comments on scalability can also be found in D. Taubman, “Successiverefinement of video: fundamental issues, past efforts and newdirections”, Proc. of SPIE (VCIP'03), vol. 5150, pp. 649-663, 2003,wherein, however, significant coder structure alterations are required.According to the invention, a coder/decoder concept is achieved, whichhas, on the one hand, the scalability possibility and can, on the otherhand, be based on elements in conformity with the standard,particularly, e.g., for the motion compensation.

Before reference will be made in more detail to a coder/decoderstructure with regard to FIG. 3, first, a basic lifting scheme on theside of the coder and an inverse lifting scheme on the side of thedecoder, respectively, will be illustrated with regard to FIG. 4.Detailed explanations about the background of the combination of liftingschemes and wavelet transformations can be found in W. Sweldens, “Acustom design construction of biorthogonal wavelets”, J. Appl. Comp.Harm. Anal., vol. (no. 2), pp. 186-200, 1996 and I. Daubechies and W.Sweldens, “Factoring wavelet transforms into lifting Steps”, J. FourierAnal. Appl., vol. 4 (no. 3), pp. 247-269, 1998. Generally, the liftingscheme consists of three steps, the polyphase decomposition step, theprediction step and the update step.

The decomposition step comprises partitioning the input side data streaminto an identical first copy for a lower branch 40 a as well as anidentical copy for an upper branch 40 b. Further, the identical copy ofthe upper branch 40 b is delayed by a time stage (z⁻¹), so that a samples_(2k+1) with an odd index k passes through a respective decimator anddownsampler 42 a, 42 b, respectively, at the same as a sample with aneven index s_(2k). The decimator 42 a and 42 b, respectively, reducesthe number of samples in the upper and the lower branch 40 b, 40 a,respectively, by eliminating every second sample.

The second region II, which relates to the prediction step, comprises aprediction operator 43 as well as a subtracter 44. The third region,which means the update step, comprises an update operator 45 as well asan adder 46. On the output side, two normalizers 47, 48 exist, fornormalizing the high-pass signal h_(k) (normalizer 47) and fornormalizing the low-pass signal l_(k) through the normalizer 48.

Particularly, the polyphase decomposition leads to the partitioning ofeven and odd samples of a given signal s[k]. Since the correlationstructure typically shows a local characteristic, the even and oddpolyphase components are highly correlated. Thus, in a final step, aprediction (P) of the odd samples is performed by using the integersamples. The corresponding prediction operator (P) for every odd samples_(odd)[k] =s[2k+1] is a linear combination of the adjacent even sampless_(even)[k] =s[2k], i.e.

${{P\left( s_{even} \right)}\lbrack k\rbrack} = {\sum\limits_{l}{p_{l}{{s_{even}\left\lbrack {k + l} \right\rbrack}.}}}$

As a result of the prediction step, the odd samples are replaced bytheir respective prediction residual values

h[k]=s _(odd) [k]−P(s _(even))[k].

It should be noted that the prediction step is equivalent to performinga high-pass filter of a two channel filter bank, as it is illustrated inI. Daubechies and W. Sweldens, “Factoring wavelet transforms intolifting steps”, J. Fourier Anal. Appl. vol 4 (no. 3), pp. 247-269, 1998.

In the third step of the lifting scheme, low-pass filtering isperformed, by replacing the even samples S_(even)[k] by a linearcombination of prediction residual values h[k]. The respective updateoperator U is given by

${{U(h)}\lbrack k\rbrack} = {\sum\limits_{l}{u_{l}{{h\left\lbrack {k + l} \right\rbrack}.\;.}}}$

By replacing the even samples with

l[k]=s _(even) [k]+U(h)[k]

the given signal s[k] can finally be represented by l(k) and h(k),wherein every signal has half the sample rate. Since both the updatestep and the prediction step are fully invertible, the correspondingtransformation can be interpreted as critically sampled perfectreconstruction filter bank. Indeed, it can be shown that anybiorthogonal family of wavelet filters can be realized by a sequence ofone or several prediction steps and one or several update steps. For anormalization of low-pass and high-pass components, the normalizers 47and 48 are supplied with suitably chosen scaling factors F_(l) andF_(h), as has been explained.

The inverse lifting scheme, which corresponds to the synthesis filterbank, is shown in FIG. 4 on the right hand side. It consists simply ofthe application of the prediction and update operator in inverse orderand with inverse signs, followed by the reconstruction by using the evenand odd polyphase components. Specifically, the right decoder shown inFIG. 4 comprises again a first decoder region I, a second decoder regionII as well as a third decoder region III. The first decoder regioncancels the effect of the update operator 45. This is effected bysupplying the high-pass signal, which has been re-normalized by afurther normalizer 50, to the update operator 45. Then, the outputsignal of the decoder side update operator 45 is supplied to asubtracter 52, in contrary to the adder 46 in FIG. 4. Correspondingly,the output signal of the predictor 43 is processed, the output signal ofwhich is now supplied to an adder 53 and not to a subtracter as on thecoder side. Now, an upsampling of the signal by the factor 2 takes placein every branch (blocks 54 a, 54 b). Then, the upper branch is shiftedby one sample into the future, which is equivalent to delaying the lowerbranch, to perform then an addition of the data streams on the upperbranch and the lower branch in an adder 55, to obtain the reconstructedsignal s_(k) at the output of the synthesis filter bank.

Several wavelets can be implemented by the predictor 43 and theupdate-operator 45, respectively. If the so-called hair wavelet is to beimplemented, the prediction operator and the update operator are givenby the following equation:

${{{P_{Hair}\left( s_{even} \right)}\lbrack k\rbrack} = {{{s\left\lbrack {2k} \right\rbrack}\mspace{14mu} {and}\mspace{14mu} {{U_{Hair}(h)}\lbrack k\rbrack}} = {\frac{1}{2}{h\lbrack k\rbrack}}}},$

such that

h[k] = s[2k + 1] − s[2k]  and  ${l\lbrack k\rbrack} = {{{s\left\lbrack {2k} \right\rbrack} + {\frac{1}{2}{h\lbrack k\rbrack}}} = {\frac{1}{2}\left( {{s\left\lbrack {2k} \right\rbrack} + {s\left\lbrack {{2k} + 1} \right\rbrack}} \right)}}$

correspond to the non-normalized high-pass and low-pass (analysis)output signal, respectively, of the hair filter.

In the case of the 5/3 biorthogonal spline wavelet, the low-pass andhigh-pass analysis filter of this wavelet have 5 and 3 filter taps,respectively, wherein the corresponding scaling function is a secondorder B spline. In coder applications for still pictures, such as JPEG2000, this wavelet is used for a time subband coder scheme. In a liftingenvironment, the corresponding prediction and update operators of the5/3 transformation are given as follows:

${{{P_{5/3}\left( s_{even} \right)}\lbrack k\rbrack} = {\frac{1}{2}\left( {{s\left\lbrack {2k} \right\rbrack} + {s\left\lbrack {{2k} + 2} \right\rbrack}} \right)\mspace{14mu} {and}}}\mspace{14mu}$${{U_{5/3}(h)}\lbrack k\rbrack} = {\frac{1}{4}\left( {{h\lbrack k\rbrack} + {h\left\lbrack {k - 1} \right\rbrack}} \right)}$

FIG. 3 shows a block diagram of a coder/decoder structure with exemplaryfour filter levels both on the side of the coder and on the side of thedecoder. From FIG. 3, it can be seen that the first filter level, thesecond filter level, the third filter level and the fourth filter levelare identical with regard to the coder. The filter levels with regard tothe decoder are also identical. On the coder side, every filter levelcomprises a backward predictor M_(i0) as well as a forward predictorM_(i1) 61 as central elements. The backward predictor 60 corresponds inprinciple to the predictor 43 of FIG. 4, while the forward predictor 61corresponds to the update operator of FIG. 4.

In contrary to FIG. 4, it should be noted that FIG. 4 relates to astream of samples, where a sample has an odd index 2k+1, while anothersample has an even index 2k. However, as has already been explained withregard to FIG. 1, the notation in FIG. 3 relates to a group of picturesinstead of to a group of samples. If a picture has for example a numberof samples and pictures, respectively, this picture is fed in fully.Then, the next picture is fed in, etc. Thus, there are no longer odd andeven samples, but odd and even pictures. According to the invention, thelifting scheme described for odd and even samples is applied to odd andeven pictures, respectively, each of which has a plurality of samples.Now, the sample by sample predictor 43 of FIG. 4 becomes the backwardmotion compensation prediction 60, while the sample by sample updateoperator 45 becomes the picture by picture forward motion compensationprediction 61.

It should be noted that the motion filters, which consist of motionvectors and represent coefficients for the block 60 and 61, arecalculated for two subsequent related pictures and are transmitted asside information from coder to decoder. However, it is a main advantageof the inventive concept that the elements 91, 92, as they are describedwith reference to FIG. 9 and standardized in standard H.264/AVC, caneasily be used to calculate both the motion fields M_(i0) and the motionfields M_(i1). Thus, no new predictor/update operator has to be used forthe inventive concept, but the already existing algorithm mentioned inthe video standard, which is examined and checked for functionality andefficiency, can be used for the motion compensation in forward directionor backward direction.

Particularly, the general structure of the used filter bank illustratedin FIG. 3 shows a temporal decomposition of the video signal with agroup of 16 pictures, which are fed in at an input 64. The decompositionis a dyadic temporal decomposition of the video signal, wherein in theembodiment shown in FIG. 3 with four levels 2⁴=16 pictures, which meansa group size of 16 pictures, is required to achieve the representationwith the smallest temporal resolution, which means the signals at theoutput 28 a and at the output 28 b. Thus, if 16 pictures are grouped,this leads to a delay of 16 pictures, which makes the concept shown inFIG. 3 with four levels rather problematic for interactive applications.Thus, if interactive applications are aimed at, it is preferred to formsmaller groups of pictures, such as to group four or eight pictures.Then, the delay is correspondingly reduced, so that the usage forinteractive applications becomes possible. In cases where interactivityis not required, such as for storage purposes, etc., the number ofpictures in a group, which means the group size, can be correspondinglyincreased, such as to 32, 64, etc. pictures.

In that way, an interactive application of the hair-basedmotion-compensated lifting scheme is used, which consists of thebackward motion compensation prediction (M_(i0)), as in H.264/AVC, andthat further comprises an update step, which comprises a forward motioncompensation (M_(i1)). Both the prediction step and the update step usethe motion compensation process, as it is illustrated in H.264/AVC.Further, not only the motion compensation is used, but also thedeblocking filter 89 designated with the reference number 89 in FIG. 9.

The second filter level comprises again downsampler 66 a, 66 b, asubtracter 69, a backward predictor 67, a forward predictor 68 as wellas an adder 70 and a further processing means to output the first andsecond high-pass picture of the second level at an output of the furtherprocessing means, while the first and second low-pass picture of thesecond level are output at the output of the adder 70.

Additionally, the coder in FIG. 3 comprises a third level as well as afourth level, wherein a group of 16 pictures is fed into thefourth-level input 64. At a fourth-level high-pass output 72, which isalso referred to as HP4, eight high-pass pictures quantized with aquantization parameter Q and correspondingly processed are output.Correspondingly, eight low-pass pictures are output at a low-pass output73 of the fourth filter level, which is fed into an input 74 of thethird filter level. This level, again, is effective to generate fourhigh-pass pictures at a high-pass output 75, which is also referred toas HP3, and to generate four low-pass pictures at a low-pass output 76,which are fed into the input 10 of the second filter level anddecomposed.

It should particularly be noted that the group of pictures processed bya filter level does not necessarily have to be video picturesoriginating from an original video sequence, but can also be low-passpictures, which are output by a next higher filter level at a low-passoutput of the filter level.

Further, it should be noted that the coder concept shown in FIG. 3 for16 pictures can easily be reduced to eight pictures, when simply thefourth filter level is omitted and the group of pictures is fed into theinput 74. In the same way, the concept shown in FIG. 3 can also beextended to a group of 32 pictures, by adding a fifth filter level andby outputting then 16 high-pass pictures at a high-pass output of thefifth filter level and feeding the sixteen low-pass pictures at theoutput of the fifth filter level into the input 64 of the fourth filterlevel.

The tree-like concept of the coder side is also applied to the decoderside, but now no longer, like on the coder side, from the high level tothe lower level but, on the decoder side, from the lower level to thehigher level. Therefore, the data stream is received from a transmissionmedium, which is schematically referred to as network abstraction layer100, and the received bit stream is first subject to an inverse furtherprocessing by using the inverse further processing means, to obtain areconstructed version of the first high-pass picture of the first levelat the output of means 30 a and a reconstructed version of thefirst-level low-pass picture at the output of block 30 b of FIG. 3.Then, analogous to the right half of FIG. 4, first the forward motioncompensation prediction is reversed via the predictor 61, to subtractthen the output signal of the predictor 61 from the reconstructedversion of the low-pass signal (subtracter 101).

The output signal of the subtracter 101 is fed into a backwardcompensation predictor 60 to generate a prediction result, which isadded to the reconstructed version of the high-pass picture in an adder102. Then, both signals, which means the signals in the lower branch 103a, 103 b, are brought to the double sample rate, by using the upsampler104 a, 104 b, wherein then the signal on the upper branch is eitherdelayed or “accelerated”, depending on the implementation. It should benoted that the upsampling is performed by the bridge 104 a, 104 b simplyby inserting a number of zeros which corresponds to the number ofsamples for a picture. The shift by the delay of a picture by theelement shown with z⁻¹ in the upper branch 103 b against the lowerbranch 103 a effects that the addition by an adder 106 causes that thetwo second-level low-pass pictures occur subsequently on the output sidewith regard to the adder 106.

The reconstructed versions of the first and second second-level low-passpicture are then fed into the decoder-side inverse filter of the secondlevel and there they are combined again with the transmittedsecond-level high-pass pictures by the identical implementation of theinverse filter bank to obtain a sequence of four third-level low-passpictures at an output 101 of the second level. The four third-levellow-pass pictures are then combined in an inverse filter level of thethird level with the transmitted third-level high-pass pictures toobtain eight fourth-level low-pass pictures in subsequent format at anoutput 110 of the inverse third-level filter. These eight third-levellow-pass pictures will then be combined again with the eightfourth-level high-pass pictures received from the transmission medium100 via the input HP4, in an inverse fourth-level filter, as discussedwith regard to the first level, to obtain a reconstructed group of 16pictures at an output 112 of the inverse fourth-level filter.

Thus, in every stage of the analysis filter bank, two pictures, eitheroriginal pictures or pictures representing low-pass signals andgenerated in a next higher level, are decomposed into a low-pass signaland a high-pass signal. The low-pass signal can be considered asrepresentation of the common characteristics of the input pictures,while the high-pass signal can be considered as representation of thedifferences between the input pictures. In the corresponding stage ofthe synthesis filter bank, the two input pictures are againreconstructed by using the low-pass signal and the high-pass signal.

Since the inverse operations of the analysis step are performed in thesynthesis step, the analysis/synthesis filter bank (withoutquantization, of course) guarantees a perfect reconstruction.

The only occurring losses occur due to the quantization in the furtherprocessing means, such as 26 a, 26 b, 18. If quantization is performedvery finely, a good signal noise ratio is achieved. If, however,quantization is performed very coarsely, a relatively bad signal noiseratio is achieved, but with a low bit rate, which means low demand.

Without SNR scalability, a time scaling control could be implementedalready with the concept shown in FIG. 3. Therefore, a time scalingcontrol 120 is used, which is formed to obtain the high-pass andlow-pass output, respectively, and the outputs of the further processingmeans (26 a, 26 b, 18 . . . ) respectively, at the input side togenerate a scaled data stream from these partial data streams TP1, HP1,HP2, HP3, HP4, which has the processed version of the first low-passpicture and the first high-pass picture in a base scaling layer. Then,the processed version of the second high-pass picture could beaccommodated in a first enhancement scaling layer. The processedversions of the third-level high-pass pictures could be accommodated ina second enhancement scaling layer, while the processed versions of thefourth-level high-pass pictures are introduced in a third enhancementscaling layer. Thereby, merely based on the base scaling layer, adecoder could already generate a sequence of lower-level low-passpictures with a lower time quality, which means two first-level low-passpictures per group of pictures. With the addition of every enhancementscaling layer, the number of reconstructed pictures per group can alwaysbe doubled. The functionality of the decoder is typically controlled bya scaling control, which is formed to detect how many scaling layers arecontained in the data stream and how many scaling layers have to beconsidered by the decoder during decoding, respectively.

The JVT document JVT-J 035 with the title “SNR-Scalable Extension ofH.264/AVC” Heiko Schwarz, Detlev Marpe and Thomas Wiegand, presentedduring the tenth JVT meeting in Waikoloa Hi., 8^(th) to 12^(th) Dec.2003, shows a SNR scalable extension of the temporal decompositionscheme illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4. Particularly, a time scaling layeris partitioned into individual “SNR scaling sublayers”, wherein a SNRbase layer is obtained in such that a certain time scaling layer isquantized with a first coarser quantizer step width to obtain the SNRbase layer. Then, among other things, an inverse quantization isperformed, and the result signal from the inverse quantization issubtracted from the original signal to obtain a difference signal, whichis then quantized with a finer quantizer step width to obtain the secondscaling layer. However, the second scaling layer is requantized with thefiner quantizer step width to subtract the signal obtained after therequantization from the original signal to obtain a further differencesignal, which, again after quantization, but now with a finer quantizerstep width, represents a second SNR scaling layer and an SNR enhancementlayer, respectively.

Thus, it has been found out that the above described scalabilityschemes, which are based on the motion-compensated temporal filtering(MCTF), already provide a high flexibility with regard to the temporalscalability and also the SNR scalability. But there is still a problemin that the bit rate of several scaling layers together is stillsignificantly above the bit rate, which can be achieved when pictures ofthe highest quality would be coded without scalability. Due to the sideinformation for the different scaling layers, scalable coders mightnever obtain the bit rate of the unscaled case. However, the bit rate ofa data stream with several scaling layers should approach the bit rateof the unscaled case as closely as possible.

Further, the scalability concept should provide high flexibility for allscalability types, which means a high flexibility both with regard totime and space and also with regard to SNR.

The high flexibility is particularly important where already pictureswith low resolution would be sufficient but a higher temporal resolutionis desirable. Such a situation results, for example, when fast changesexist in pictures, such as, for example, in videos of team sports, whereadditionally to the ball, many persons move at the same time.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide a concept forflexible coding/decoding, which provides a bit rate, which is as low aspossible, despite the fact that it is a scalable concept.

In accordance with a first aspect, the present invention provides anapparatus for generating a coded video sequence having a base scalinglayer and an enhancement scaling layer, having: a base motioncompensator for calculating base motion data, which indicate how amacroblock in a current picture has moved in relation to another picturein a group of pictures; a base motion predictor for calculating a basesequence of residual error pictures by using the base motion data; abase picture coder formed to calculate the coded base scaling layer fromthe base sequence of residual error pictures; an enhancement motioncompensator for determining enhancement motion data; an enhancementmotion predictor for calculating an enhancement sequence of residualerror pictures; an intermediate layer predictor for calculatingenhancement prediction residual error pictures by using the enhancementsequence of residual error pictures and by using information about thebase sequence of residual error pictures; and an enhancement picturecoder for coding the enhancement prediction residual error pictures toobtain the coded enhancement scaling layer.

In accordance with a second aspect, the present invention provides amethod for generating a coded video sequence having a base scaling layerand an enhancement scaling layer, having the steps of: calculating basemotion data, which indicate how a macroblock in a current picture hasmoved in relation to another picture in a group of pictures; calculatinga base sequence of residual error pictures by using the base motiondata; coding information about the base sequence of residual errorpictures to calculate the coded base scaling layer from the basesequence of residual error pictures; determining enhancement motiondata; calculating an enhancement sequence of residual error pictures;calculating enhancement prediction residual error pictures by using theenhancement sequence of residual error pictures and by using informationabout the base sequence of residual error pictures; and coding theenhancement prediction residual error pictures to obtain the codedenhancement scaling layer.

In accordance with a third aspect, the present invention provides anapparatus for decoding a coded video sequence having a base scalinglayer and an enhancement scaling layer, having: a base picture decoderfor decoding the base scaling layer to obtain a decoded base sequence ofresidual error pictures and base motion data; a base motion combiner toobtain a sequence of pictures of the base scaling layer by using thebase motion data and the decoded sequence of residual error pictures; anenhancement picture decoder for decoding the enhancement scaling layerto obtain enhancement prediction residual error pictures; anintermediate layer combiner for combining the decoded base sequence ofresidual error pictures or an interpolated base sequence of residualerror pictures with the enhancement prediction residual error picturesto obtain an enhancement sequence of residual error pictures; anenhancement motion combiner, which is formed to obtain a sequence ofpictures of the enhancement scaling layer by using the enhancementsequence of residual error pictures and enhancement motion data.

In accordance with a fourth aspect, the present invention provides amethod for decoding a coded video sequence with a base scaling layer andan enhancement scaling layer, having the steps of: decoding the basescaling layer to obtain a decoded base sequence of residual errorpictures and base motion data; performing a base motion combination toobtain a sequence of pictures of the base scaling layer by using thebase motion data and the decoded sequence of residual error pictures;decoding the enhancement scaling layer to obtain enhancement predictionresidual error pictures; combining the decoded base sequence of residualerror pictures or an interpolated base sequence of residual errorpictures with the enhancement prediction residual error pictures toobtain an enhancement sequence of residual error pictures; performing anenhancement motion combination to obtain a sequence of pictures of theenhancement scaling layer by using the enhancement sequence of residualerror pictures and enhancement motion data.

In accordance with a fifth aspect, the present invention provides acomputer program for performing a method for generating a coded videosequence having a base scaling layer and an enhancement scaling layer,having the steps of: calculating base motion data, which indicate how amacroblock in a current picture has moved in relation to another picturein a group of pictures; calculating a base sequence of residual errorpictures by using the base motion data; coding information about thebase sequence of residual error pictures to calculate the coded basescaling layer from the base sequence of residual error pictures;determining enhancement motion data; calculating an enhancement sequenceof residual error pictures; calculating enhancement prediction residualerror pictures by using the enhancement sequence of residual errorpictures and by using information about the base sequence of residualerror pictures; and coding the enhancement prediction residual errorpictures to obtain the coded enhancement scaling layer; or a method fordecoding a coded video sequence with a base scaling layer and anenhancement scaling layer, having the steps of: decoding the basescaling layer to obtain a decoded base sequence of residual errorpictures and base motion data; performing a base motion combination toobtain a sequence of pictures of the base scaling layer by using thebase motion data and the decoded sequence of residual error pictures;decoding the enhancement scaling layer to obtain enhancement predictionresidual error pictures; combining the decoded base sequence of residualerror pictures or an interpolated base sequence of residual errorpictures with the enhancement prediction residual error pictures toobtain an enhancement sequence of residual error pictures; performing anenhancement motion combination to obtain a sequence of pictures of theenhancement scaling layer by using the enhancement sequence of residualerror pictures and enhancement motion data, when the method runs on acomputer.

In accordance with a sixth aspect, the present invention provides acomputer readable medium with a coded video sequence having a basescaling layer and an enhancement scaling layer, wherein the coded videosequence is formed such that it results in a decoded first scaling layerand a decoded second scaling layer when it is decoded in an apparatusfor decoding a coded video sequence having a base scaling layer and anenhancement scaling layer, having: a base picture decoder for decodingthe base scaling layer to obtain a decoded base sequence of residualerror pictures and base motion data; a base motion combiner to obtain asequence of pictures of the base scaling layer by using the base motiondata and the decoded sequence of residual error pictures; an enhancementpicture decoder for decoding the enhancement scaling layer to obtainenhancement prediction residual error pictures; an intermediate layercombiner for combining the decoded base sequence of residual errorpictures or an interpolated base sequence of residual error pictureswith the enhancement prediction residual error pictures to obtain anenhancement sequence of residual error pictures; an enhancement motioncombiner, which is formed to obtain a sequence of pictures of theenhancement scaling layer by using the enhancement sequence of residualerror pictures and enhancement motion data.

The present invention is based on the knowledge that bit rate reductionscan be obtained not only with a motion-compensated prediction performedwithin a scaling layer, but that further bit rate reductions withconstant picture quality can be obtained by performing an intermediatescaling layer prediction of the residual pictures after themotion-compensated prediction of a lower layer, such as the base layer,to a higher layer, such as the enhancement layer.

It has been found out that within the same temporal scaling layer, theresidual values of the individual considered other scaling layers, whichare preferably scaled with regard to resolution or with regard to thesignal noise ratio also have correlations between the residual valuesafter the motion-compensated prediction. According to the invention,these correlations are advantageously used by providing an intermediatelayer predictor on the coder side for the enhancement scaling layer,which corresponds to an intermediate layer combiner on the decoder side.Preferably, this intermediate layer predictor is designed adaptively, todecide, e.g., for every macroblock whether an intermediate layerprediction is worthwhile or whether the prediction would rather lead toa bit rate increase. The latter is the case when the prediction residualsignal becomes larger than the original motion compensation residualsignal of the enhancement layer with regard to a subsequent entropycoder. However, this situation will not occur in many cases, so that theintermediate layer predictor is activated and leads to a significant bitrate reduction.

Further, in a preferred embodiment of the present invention, aprediction of the motion data of the enhancement layer is alsoperformed. Thus, it has further shown that within different qualityscaling layers, such as with regard to as SNR or resolution, the motionfields in different scaling layers also have correlations to oneanother, which can be used advantageously for bit rate reductionaccording to the invention by providing a motion data predictor. In theimplementation, the prediction can be performed in that for noindividual motion data are calculated the enhancement layer, but themotion data of the base layer are transmitted, eventually after anupsampling. This can, however, lead to the fact that the motioncompensation residual signal in the enhancement layer becomes largerthan in the case where the motion data are calculated specially for theenhancement layer. However, this disadvantage does make no differencewhen the saving due to the motion data saved for the enhancement layerduring the transmission is larger than the bit rate increase caused bypossibly larger residual values.

However, an individual motion field can be calculated for theenhancement layer in the implementation, wherein the motion field of thebase layer is integrated into the calculation or used as predictor totransmit only motion field residual values. This implementation has theadvantage that the motion data correlation of the two scaling layers isfully utilized and that the residual values of the motion data are assmall as possible after the motion data prediction. The disadvantage ofthis concept however, is the fact that additional motion data residualvalues have to be transmitted.

In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, additionally, aSNR scalability is used. This means that quantization is performed inthe base layer with a coarser quantization parameter than in theenhancement layer. The residual values of the base motion predictionquantized with the coarser quantizer step width and reconstructed againare thereby used as prediction signals for the intermediate layerpredictor. In the case of a pure SNR scalability, it can be sufficientto calculate a single motion field for all scaling layers on the coderside. With reference to the motion data of the enhancement layer, thismeans again that no further enhancement motion data have to betransmitted, but that the enhancement motion data from the base layercan be used fully on the coder side for the inverse motion compensationfor the enhancement layer. However, different quantization parameterresult in different motion fields, when a calculation of the motion datais used, into which the quantization parameter is introduced.

If a spatial scalability is used, which means the base scaling layer hasa coarser spatial resolution than the enhancement scaling layer, it ispreferred to interpolate the residual values of the base motionprediction, which means to convert from the lower spatial resolution ofthe enhancement scaling layer and to provide it then to the intermediatelayer predictor.

Further, it is preferred to perform an individual calculation of themotion information for every scaling layer. However, in a preferredembodiment of the present invention, a motion data prediction is usedhere for a data rate reduction, which can consist again either in thecomplete transmission of the motion data of the lower scaling layer(after scaling), or which can consist of using the upsampled motorvectors of the lower scaling layer for predicting the motion vectors ofthe higher scaling layer, to transmit then only the motion data residualvalues which will require a lower data rate than non-predicted motiondata. In this case, it is preferred to design both the intermediatelayer predictor and an enhancement motion data predictor adaptively.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a combinedscalability is used in that the base scaling layer and the enhancementscaling layer differ both in spatial resolution and in the usedquantization parameter, which means the used quantizer step width. Inthis case, starting, e.g., from a previous quantization parameter forthe base scaling layer due to a Lagrange optimization, a combination ofquantization parameter for the base layer, distortion and bitrequirement for the motion data for the base layer is calculated. Theresidual values obtained after a motion-compensated prediction and thebase motion data used thereby will then be used for a prediction of therespective data of a higher scaling layer, wherein again starting from afiner scaling parameter for the higher scaling layer, an optimumcombination of bit requirement for the motion data, quantizationparameter and distortion, enhancement motion data can be calculated.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other objects and features of the present invention willbecome clear from the following description taken in conjunction withthe accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 a is a preferred embodiment of an inventive coder;

FIG. 1 b is a detailed representation of a base picture coder of FIG. 1a;

FIG. 1 c is a discussion of the functionality of an intermediate layerprediction flag;

FIG. 1 d is a description of a motion data flag;

FIG. 1 e is a preferred implementation of the enhancement motioncompensator 1014 of FIG. 1 a;

FIG. 1 f is a preferred implementation of the enhancement motion datadetermination means 1078 of FIG. 2;

FIG. 1 g is an overview representation of three preferred embodimentsfor calculating the enhancement motion data and for enhancement motiondata processing for the purpose of signalization and residual datatransmission, if necessary;

FIG. 2 is a preferred embodiment of an inventive decoder;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a decoder with four levels;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram for illustrating the lifting decomposition ofa time subband filter bank;

FIG. 5 a is a representation of the functionality of the lifting schemeshown in FIG. 4;

FIG. 5 b is a representation of two preferred lifting specificationswith unidirectional prediction (hair wavelet) and bidirectionalprediction (5/3 transformation);

FIG. 5 c is a preferred embodiment of the prediction and updateoperators with motion compensation and reference indices for anarbitrary choice of the two pictures to be processed by the liftingscheme;

FIG. 5 d is a representation of the intra mode where original pictureinformation can be inserted macroblock by macroblock into high-passpictures;

FIG. 6 a is a schematic representation for signalizing a macroblockmode;

FIG. 6 b is a schematic representation for upsampling of motion data ina spatial scalability according to a preferred embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 6 c is a schematic representation of the data stream syntax formotion vector differences;

FIG. 6 d is a schematic representation of a residual value syntaxenhancement according to a preferred embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 7 is an overview diagram for illustrating the time shift of a groupof, for example, 8 pictures;

FIG. 8 is a preferred time placement of low-pass pictures for a group of16 pictures;

FIG. 9 is an overview block diagram for illustrating the basic coderstructure for a coder according to the standard H.264/AVC for amacroblock;

FIG. 10 is a context arrangement consisting of two adjacent pixelelements A and B on the left and above a current syntax element C,respectively, and

FIG. 11 is a representation of the partition of a picture into slices.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

FIG. 1 a shows a preferred embodiment of an apparatus for generating acoded video sequence, which has a base scaling layer and an enhancementscaling layer. An original video sequence with a group of 8, 16 or anynumber of pictures is fed in via an input 1000. On the output side, thecoded video sequence contains the base scaling layer 1002 and theenhancement scaling layer 1004. The enhancement scaling layer 1004 andthe base scaling layer 1002 can be supplied to a bit stream multiplexer,which generates a single scalable bit stream on the output side.Depending on the implementation, however, a separate transmission of thetwo scaling layers is also possible and useful in some cases. FIG. 1 ashows a coder for generating two scaling layers, which means the basescaling layer and an enhancement scaling layer. In order to obtain acoder, which, if necessary, generates one or several further enhancementlayers, the functionality of the enhancement scaling layer is to berepeated, wherein a higher enhancement scaling layer is always suppliedwith data by the next lower enhancement scaling layer, as theenhancement scaling layer 1004 shown in FIG. 1 is supplied with data bythe base scaling layer 1002.

Before reference will be made to different scaling types in detail, suchas a SNR scalability or a spatial scalability or a combined scalabilityof spatial and SNR scalability, first, the basic principle of thepresent invention will be illustrated. First, the coder comprises a basemotion compensator or base motion estimator 1006 for calculating basemotion data, which indicates how a macroblock has moved in a currentpicture in relation to another picture in a group of pictures, which thebase motioned compensator 1006 obtains on the input side. Techniques forcalculating motion data, particularly for calculating a motion vectorfor a macroblock, which is basically a region of pixels in a digitalvideo picture, are known. Preferably, the motion compensationcalculation is used, as it is standardized in the video coding standardH.264/AVC. Thereby, a macroblock of a later picture is considered and itis determined, how the macroblock “moved” in comparison to an earlierpicture. This motion (in xy direction) is indicated by a two-dimensionalmotion vector, which is calculated by block 1006 for every macroblockand supplied to a base picture coder 1010 via a motion data line 1008.Then, it is calculated for the next picture, how a macroblock has movedfrom the previous picture to the next picture.

In one implementation, this new motion vector, which, in a way,indicates the motion from second to a third picture, can be transmittedagain as two-dimensional vector. For efficiency reasons, however, it ispreferred to transmit only a motion vector difference, which means thedifference of the motion vector of a macroblock from the second to thethird picture and the motion vector of the macroblock from the first tothe second picture. Alternative referencings and motion vectordifferences, respectively, to not immediately previous pictures, but tofurther preceding pictures can also be used.

The motion data, which have been calculated by block 1006, will then besupplied to a base motion predictor 1012, which is designed to calculatea base sequence of residual error pictures for using the motion data andthe group of pictures. Thus, the base motion predictor performs themotion compensation, which has, in a way, been prepared by the motioncompensator and motion estimator, respectively. This base sequence ofresidual error pictures will then be supplied to the base picture coder.The base picture coder is formed to provide the base scaling layer 1002at its output.

Further, the inventive coder comprises an enhancement motion compensatoror enhancement motion estimator 1014 for detecting enhancement motiondata. These enhancement motion data are supplied to an enhancementmotion predictor 1016, which generates an enhancement sequence ofresidual error pictures on the output side and supplies them to adownstream intermediate layer predictor 1018. Thus, the enhancementmotion predictor performs the motion compensation, which, in a way, hasbeen prepared by the motion compensator and motion estimator,respectively.

The intermediate layer predictor is formed to calculate enhancementprediction residual error pictures on the output side. Depending on theimplementation, the intermediate layer predictor uses additionally tothe data, which it obtains from block 1016, which means additionally tothe enhancement sequence of residual error pictures, the base sequenceof residual error pictures, as it is provided by block 1012 via a dottedbypass line 1020. Alternatively, the block 1018 can also use aninterpolated sequence of residual error pictures, which is provided atthe output of block 1012 and interpolated by an interpolator 1022. Againalternatively, the intermediate layer predictor can also provide areconstructed base sequence of residual error pictures, as it isprovided to an output 1024 of the base picture coder 1010. As can beseen from FIG. 1 a, this reconstructed base sequence of residual errorpictures can be interpolated 1022 or not interpolated 1020. Thus,generally, the intermediate layer predictor operates by using the basesequence of residual error pictures, wherein the information at theintermediate layer predictor input 1026 is derived, e.g. by areconstruction or interpolation of the base sequence of residual errorpictures at the output of block 1012.

Downstream to the intermediate layer predictor 1018, there is anenhancement picture coder 1028, which is formed to code the enhancementprediction residual error pictures to obtain the coded enhancementscaling layer 1004.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the intermediatelayer predictor is formed to subtract the signal at its output 1026macroblock by macroblock and picture by picture from the respectivesignal, which the intermediate layer predictor 1018 obtains from theenhancement motion predictor 1016. The result signal obtained in thissubtraction represents then a macroblock of a picture of the enhancementprediction residual error pictures.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the intermediatelayer predictor is formed adaptively. For every macroblock, anintermediate layer prediction flag 1030 is provided, which indicates theintermediate layer predictor that it has to perform a prediction, orwhich indicates in its other state that no prediction is to beperformed, but that the corresponding macroblock at the output of theenhancement motion predictor 1016 is to be supplied to the enhancementpicture coder 1028 without further prediction. This adaptiveimplementation has the advantage that an intermediate layer predictionis only performed where it is useful, where the prediction residualsignal leads to a lower output picture rate compared to the case whereno intermediate layer prediction has been performed, but where theoutput data of the enhancement motion predictor 1016 have been codeddirectly.

In the case of a spatial scalability, a decimator 1032 is providedbetween the enhancement scaling layer and the base scaling layer, whichis formed to convert the video sequence at its input, which has acertain spatial resolution, to a video sequence at its output, which hasa lower resolution. If a pure SNR scalability is intended, which meansif the base picture coder 1010 and 1028 for the two scaling layersoperate with different quantization parameters 1034 and 1036,respectively, the decimator 1032 is not provided. This is illustratedschematically in FIG. 1 a by the bypass line 1038.

Further, in the case of spatial scalability, the interpolator 1022 hasto be provided. In the case of a pure SNR scalability, the interpolator1022 is not provided. Instead, the bypass line 1020 is taken, asillustrated in FIG. 1 a.

In one implementation, the enhancement motion compensator 1014 is formedto fully calculate an individual motion field, or to use the motionfield calculated by the base motion compensator 1006 directly (bypassline 1040) or after upsampling by an upsampler 1042. In the case of aspatial scalability, the upsampler 1042 has to be provided to upsample amotion vector of the base motion data to the higher resolution, whichmeans, for example, to scale. If, for example, the enhancementresolution is twice as high and wide as the base resolution, amacroblock (16×16 luminance samples) in the enhancement layer covers aregion of a picture, which corresponds to a sub-macroblock (8×8luminance samples) in the base layer.

Thus, in order to be able to use the base motion vector for themacroblock of the enhancement scaling layer, the base motion vector isdoubled in its x component and its y component, which means scaled bythe factor 2. This will be discussed in more detail with reference toFIG. 6 b.

If, however, there is merely an SNR scalability, the motion field is thesame for all scaling layers. Thus, it has to be calculated only once andcan be directly used by every higher scaling layer in the way it hasbeen calculated by the lower scaling layer.

For intermediate layer prediction, the signal at the output of the basemotion predictor 1012 can also be used. Alternatively, the reconstructedsignal on line 1024 can be used. The selection, which of these twosignals is used for prediction, is made by a switch 1044. The signal online 1024 differs from the signal at the output of block 1012 by thefact that it has already experienced a quantization. This means that thesignal on line 1024 has a quantization error in comparison to the signalat the output of block 1012. The alternative of using the signal on line1024 for intermediate layer prediction is particularly advantageous whenan SNR scalability is either used alone or in connection with a spatialscalability, since then the quantization error made by the base picturecoder 1010 is then “taken along” to the higher scaling layer, since theoutput signal at block 1018 will then contain the quantization errormade by the first scaling layer, which will then be quantized at theinput 1036 by the enhancement picture coder with a typically finerquantizer step width and a changed quantization parameter 2,respectively, and will be written into the enhancement scaling layer1004.

Analogous to the intermediate layer prediction flag 1030, a motion dataflag 1048 is fed into the picture coder, so that a correspondinginformation about that is contained in the enhancement scaling layer1004, which will then be used by the decoder, which will be discussedwith reference to FIG. 2.

If a pure spatial scalability is used, the output signal of the basemotion predictor 1012, which means the base sequence of residual errorpictures, can be used instead of the signal on line 1024, which meansinstead of the reconstructed sequence of base residual error pictures.

Depending on the implementation, the control of this switch can takeplace manually or based on a prediction benefit function.

Here, it should be noted that preferably all predictions, which meansthe motion prediction, the enhancement motion data prediction and theintermediate layer residual value prediction are designed adaptively.This means that motion data prediction residual values do notnecessarily have to be present for every macroblock or sub-macroblock ina picture of the base sequence of residual error pictures, for example.Thus, a picture of the base sequence of residual error pictures can alsocontain non-predicted macroblocks and sub-macroblocks, respectively,despite the fact that it is referred to as “residual error picture”.This situation will occur when it has been found out that, e.g., a newobject occurs in a picture. Here, a motion-compensated prediction wouldbe useless, since the prediction residual signal would become largerthan the original signal in the picture. In the enhancement motionprediction in block 1016, in such a case, both the prediction operatorand eventually the update operator for this block (e.g. macroblock orsub-macroblock) would be deactivated.

Still, for clarity reasons, e.g. a base sequence of residual errorpictures is mentioned, despite maybe only a single residual errorpicture of the base sequence of residual error pictures has a singleblock, which actually includes motion prediction residual signals. Intypical application cases, however, every residual error picture willactually have a high number of blocks with motion prediction residualdata.

In the sense of the present invention, this applies also for theenhancement sequence of residual error pictures. In that way, thesituation in the enhancement layer will be similar to the situation inthe base layer. Thus, in the sense of the present invention, anenhancement sequence of residual error pictures is already a sequence ofpictures, wherein in the extreme case only a single block of a single“residual error picture” will have motion prediction residual values,while in all other blocks of this picture and even in all other“residual error pictures” actually no residual errors exist, since themotion-compensated prediction and, if necessary, the motion-compensatedupdate have been deactivated for all these pictures/blocks.

According to the present invention, this applies also for theintermediate layer predictor, which calculates enhancement predictionresidual error pictures. Typically, the enhancement prediction residualerror pictures will be present in a sequence. However, the intermediatelayer predictor is also preferably formed adaptively. If, for example,it has been found out that a residual data prediction of a base layerfrom the base layer to the enhancement layer has been useful only for asingle block of a single “residual error picture”, while for all otherblocks of this picture and, if necessary, even for all other pictures ofthe sequence of enhancement prediction residual error pictures, theintermediate layer residual data prediction has been deactivated, in thepresent context, for clarity reasons, the sequence will still bereferred to as enhancement prediction residual error picture. In thisconnection, it should be noted that the intermediate layer predictor canonly predict residual data, when in a corresponding block of a residualerror picture in the base layer motion compensation residual values havealready been calculated, and when for a block corresponding to thisblock (e.g. at the same x, y position) a motion-compensated predictionhas also been performed in a residual error picture of the enhancementsequence, so that in this block, residual error values exist in theenhancement layer due to a motion-compensated prediction. Only whenactual motion-compensated prediction residual values exist in bothblocks to be considered, the intermediate layer predictor willpreferably become active to use a block of residual error values in apicture of the base layer as predictor for a block of residual errorvalues in a picture of the enhancement layer and then to transmit onlythe residual values of this prediction, which means enhancementprediction residual error data in this block of the considered pictureto the enhancement picture coder.

In the following, a detailed illustration of the base picture coder 1010or the enhancement picture coder 1028 and any picture coder,respectively, will be discussed with reference to FIG. 1 b. On the inputside, the picture coder receives the group of residual error picturesand supplies them macroblock by macroblock to a transformation 1050. Thetransformed macroblocks will then be scaled in a block 1052 andquantized by using a quantization parameter 1034, 1036, . . . At theoutput of block 1052, the used quantization parameter, which means theused quantizer step width for a macroblock as well as quantizationindices for the spectral values of the macroblock, will be output. Thisinformation will then be supplied to an entropy coder stage not shown inFIG. 1 b, which comprises a Huffman coder or preferably an arithmeticcoder, which operates with the known CABAC concept according toH.264/AVC. The output signal of means 1052 will also be supplied toblock 1054, which performs an inverse scaling and requantization toconvert the quantization indices together with the quantizationparameter again into numerical values, which will then be supplied to aninverse transformation in block 1056 to obtain a reconstructed group ofresidual error pictures, which will now have a quantization error at theinput of the transformation block 1050 compared to the original group ofresidual error pictures, which depends on the quantization parametersand the quantizer step width, respectively. Depending on the control ofthe switch 1044, either the one signal or the other signal is suppliedto the interpolator 1022 or already to the intermediate layer predictor1018 in order to perform the inventive residual value prediction.

A simple implementation of the intermediate layer predictor flag 1030 isillustrated in FIG. 1 c. If the intermediate layer prediction flag isset, the intermediate layer predictor 1018 is activated. However, if theflag is not set, the intermediate layer predictor is deactivated, sothat a simulcast operation is performed for this macroblock or asub-macroblock subordinate to this macroblock. The reason thereforecould be that the coder gain by the prediction is actually a coder loss,which means that a transmission of the corresponding macroblock at theoutput of block 1016 provides a better coder gain in the subsequententropy coding than when prediction residual values would be used.

A simple implementation of the motion data flag 1048 is shown in FIG. 1d. If the flag is set, motion data of the enhancement layer are derivedfrom upsampled motion data of the base layer. In the case of an SNRscalability, the upsampler 1042 is not required. Here, when the flag1048 is set, the motion data of the enhancement layer can be deriveddirectly from the base motion data. It should be noted that this motiondata “derivation” can be the direct takeover of the motion data or areal prediction wherein block 1014 subtracts the motion vectors obtainedfrom the base layer from corresponding motion vectors for theenhancement scaling layer calculated by block 1014, to obtain motiondata prediction values. The motion data of the enhancement layer (if noprediction of any type has been performed) or the residual values of theprediction (if a real prediction has been performed) will be supplied tothe enhancement picture coder 1028 via an output shown in FIG. 1 a, sothat they will be contained in the enhancement scaling layer bit stream1004 in the end. If, however, a full take over of the motion data fromthe base scaling layer with or without scaling is performed, noenhancement motion data have to be written into the enhancement scalinglayer bit stream 1004. It is merely sufficient to signalize this fact bythe motion data flag 1048 in the enhancement scaling layer bit stream.

FIG. 2 shows an apparatus for decoding a coded video sequence, whichcomprises the base scaling layer 1002 and the enhancement scaling layer1004. The enhancement scaling layer 1004 and the base scaling layer 1002can originate from a bit stream demultiplexer, which demultiplexes ascalable bit stream with both scaling layers correspondingly, to extractboth the base scaling layer 1002 and the enhancement scaling layer 1004from the common bit stream. The base scaling layer 1002 is supplied to abase picture decoder 1060, which is formed to decode the base scalinglayer to obtain a decoded base sequence of residual error pictures andbase motion data, which are applied to an output line 1062. The outputsignals at line 1062 will then be supplied to a base motion combiner1064, which cancels the base motion predictor introduced in the coder inblock 1012, to output decoded pictures of the first scaling layer on theoutput side. Further, the inventive decoder comprises an enhancementpicture decoder 1066 for decoding the enhancement scaling layer 1004 toobtain enhancement prediction residual error pictures at an output line1068. Further, the output line 1068 comprises motion data information,such as the motion data flag 1070 or, if actually enhancement motiondata or enhancement motion data residual values existed in theenhancement scaling layer 1004, these enhancement motion data. Now, thedecoded base sequence on the line 1062 will either be interpolated by aninterpolator 1070 or supplied unchanged (line 1072) to an intermediatelayer combiner 1074 in order to cancel the intermediate layer predictionperformed by the intermediate layer predictor 1018 of FIG. 1 a. Thus,the intermediate layer combiner is formed to combine the enhancementprediction residual error pictures with information about the decodedbase sequence on line 1062, either interpolated (1070) or not (1072), toobtain an enhancement sequence of residual error pictures, which willfinally be provided to an enhancement motion combiner 1076, which, likethe base motion combiner 1064, cancels the motion compensation performedin the enhancement layer. The enhancement motion combiner 1076 iscoupled to a motion data determination means 1078, to provide the motiondata for the motion combination in block 1076. The motion data canactually be full enhancement motion data for the enhancement layerprovided by the enhancement picture decoder at output 1068.Alternatively, the enhancement motion data can also be motion dataresidual values. In both cases, the corresponding data will be suppliedto the motion data determination means 1078 via an enhancement motiondata line 1080. If, however, the motion data flag 1070 signals that noindividual enhancement motion data have been transmitted for theenhancement layer, necessary motion data will be taken from the baselayer via a line 1082, depending on the used scalability either directly(line 1084) or after upsampling by an upsampler 1086.

Further, in the case of an intermediate layer prediction of intrablocks,which means no motion data residual values, a corresponding connectionbetween the enhancement motion combiner 1076 and the base motioncombiner 1064 is provided on the decoder side, which has, depending onspatial scalability, an interpolator 1090 or a bypass line when only anSNR scalability has been used. In the case of an optional intrablockprediction between two layers, merely a prediction residual signal willbe transmitted to the enhancement layer for this intramacroblock, whichwill be indicated by corresponding signalization information in bitstream. In this case, the enhancement motion combiner will also performa summation for this one macroblock, additionally to the below explainedfunctionality, which means to perform a combination between themacroblock residual values and the macroblock values from the lowerscaling layer and to supply the obtained macroblock to the actualinverse motion compensation processing.

In the following, with reference to FIGS. 3 to 5 d, a preferredembodiment of the base motion predictor 1012 or the enhancement motionpredictor 1016 and the inverse element, respectively, which means theenhancement motion combiner 1076 or the base motion compensator 1064will be explained.

Basically, any motion-compensated prediction algorithm can be used,which means also the motion compensation algorithm illustrated at 92 inFIG. 9. Thus, the conventional motion compensation algorithm alsofollows the systematic shown in FIG. 1, wherein, however, the updateoperator U illustrated in FIG. 4 with reference number 45, isdeactivated. This leads to the fact that a group of pictures isconverted into an original picture and residual pictures and predictionresidual signals, respectively, or residual error pictures dependingthereon. If, however, an enhancement is implemented in the known motioncompensation scheme in that the update operator, as illustrated in FIG.4, is active and is calculated, for example as it is illustrated withregard to FIGS. 5 a to 5 d, the normal motion-compensated predictioncalculation becomes the so-called MCTF processing, which is alsoreferred to as motion-compensated time filtering. Here, the normalpicture and intra picture of the conventional motion compensation,respectively, becomes a low-pass picture through the update operation,since the original picture combined with the prediction residual signalweighted by the update operator.

As has already been described with regard to FIGS. 1 a and 2, in apreferred embodiment of the present invention, such an MCTF processingis performed for every scaling layer, wherein the MCTF processing ispreferably performed as it is described with reference to FIGS. 3 to 5 dand 7 to 8.

In the following, the preferred embodiment of the motion-compensatedprediction filter will be described with reference to FIG. 4 and thesubsequent FIGS. 5 a-5 d. As has already been explained, themotion-compensated temporal filter (MCTF) consists of a general liftingscheme with three steps, namely the polyphase decomposition, theprediction and the update. The corresponding analysis/synthesis filterbank structure is shown in FIG. 4. On the analysis side, the odd samplesof a given signal are filtered by a linear combination of the evensamples by using the prediction operator P and the high-pass signal H tothe prediction residual values. A corresponding low-pass signal 1 isformed by adding a linear combination of the prediction residual valuesh with the even samples of the input signal s by using the updateoperator. The equation connection of the variables h and l shown in FIG.4 as well as the basic embodiments of the operators P and U is shown inFIG. 5 a.

Since both the prediction step and the update step can be fullyinverted, the corresponding transformation can be considered ascritically sampled perfect reconstruction filter bank. The synthesisfilter bank comprises the application of the prediction operator and theupdate operator in inverse sequence with the inverted signs in thesummation process, wherein the even and odd polyphase components areused. For a normalization of the high-pass/low-pass components,corresponding scaling factors F_(l) and F_(h) are used. These scalingfactors do not necessarily have to be used, but they can be used whenquantizer step sizes are chosen during coding.

f[x,k] shows a video signal with the space coordinates x=(x,y)^(T),wherein k is the time coordinate. The prediction operator P and theupdate operator U for the temporal decomposition by using the liftingrepresentation of the hair wavelet is given as shown on the left handside in FIG. 5 b. For the 5/3 transformation, corresponding operatorsresult as shown on the right hand side in FIG. 5 b. The enhancement tothe motion-compensated temporal filtering is obtained by modification ofthe prediction operator and the update operator, as shown in FIG. 5 c.Particularly, reference will be made to the reference indices r>0, whichallow a general picture adaptive motion-compensated filtering. Throughthese reference indices, it can be ensured that in the scenarioillustrated in FIG. 4 not only merely two temporally immediatelysubsequent pictures are decomposited into a high-pass picture and alow-pass picture, but that, for example, a first picture can be filteredin a motion compensated way with a third picture of a sequence.Alternatively, the appropriate choice of reference indices allows that,e.g., one and the same picture of a sequence of sequences can be used toserve as base for the motion vector. This means that the referenceindices allow for example in a sequence of eight pictures that allmotion vectors are related, e.g. to the fourth picture of the sequence,so that a single low-pass picture results at the end by processing theseeight pictures through the filter scheme in FIG. 4, and that sevenhigh-pass pictures (enhancement pictures) result and that all motionvectors relate to one and the same picture of the original sequencewhere one enhancement picture is associated to every motion vector.

If thus one and the same picture of a sequence is used as reference forfiltering several further pictures, this leads to a temporal resolutionscaling not obeying to the factor of 2, which can be advantageous forcertain applications. Always the same picture, namely, for example, thefourth picture of the sequence of eight pictures, is fed into the lowerbranch of the analysis filter bank in FIG. 4. The low-pass picture isthe same in every filtering, namely the finally desired single low-passpicture of the sequence of pictures. When the update parameter is zero,the base picture is simply “passed through” through the lower branch. Incomparison, the high-pass picture is always dependent on thecorresponding other picture of the original sequence and the predictionoperator, wherein the motion vector associated to this input picture isused in the prediction. Thus, in this case it can be said that thefinally obtained low-pass picture is associated to a certain picture ofthe original sequence of pictures, and that also every high-pass pictureis associated to a picture of the original sequence, wherein exactly thedeviation of the original picture correspond to the sequence (a motioncompensation) from the chosen base picture of the sequence (which is fedinto the lower branch of the analysis filter bank of FIG. 4). When everyupdate parameter M₀₁, M₁₁, M₂₁ and M₃₁ is equal to zero, this leads tothe fact that the picture fed into the lower branch 73 of the fourthlevel is simply “passed through” towards the bottom. In a way, thelow-pass picture TP1 is fed “repeatedly” into the filter bank, while theother pictures—controlled by the reference indices—are introduced oneafter the other into the input 64 of FIG. 3.

As can be seen from the previous equations, the prediction and updateoperators for the motion-compensated filtering, respectively, providedifferent predictions for the two different wavelets. When the hairwavelet is used, a unidirectional motion-compensated prediction isachieved. If, however, the 5/3 spline wavelet is used, the two operatorsspecify a bidirectional motion-compensated prediction.

Since the bidirectional compensated prediction generally reduces theenergy of the prediction residual value, but increases the motion vectorrate compared to an unidirectional prediction, it is desirable to switchdynamically between the unidirectional and the bidirectional prediction,which means that one can switch between a lifting representation of thehair wavelet and the 5/3 spline wavelet dependent on a picture dependentcontrol signal. The inventive concept, which uses no closed feedbackloop for temporal filtering, easily allows this macroblock by macroblockswitching between two wavelets, which again supports flexibility andparticularly data rate saving, which can be performed optimally in asignal-adapted way.

In order to represent the motion fields or generally the prediction datafields M_(P) and M_(U), ideally, the existing syntax of the B slices inH.264/AVC can be used.

By cascading the pair-wise picture decomposition stages, a dyadic treestructure is obtained, which decomposits a group of 2^(n) pictures into2^(n−1) residual pictures and a single low-pass (or intra) picture, asit is illustrated with regard to FIG. 7 for a group of eight pictures.Particularly, FIG. 7 shows the first-level high-pass picture HP1 at theoutput 22 of the filter of the first level as well as the first-levellow-pass picture at the output 24 of the first-level filter. The twolow-pass pictures TP2 at the output 16 of the second-level filter aswell as the high-pass pictures obtained from the second level are shownin FIG. 7 as second level pictures. The third level low-pass picturesare applied to the output 76 of the third level filter, while the thirdlevel high-pass pictures are applied to the output 75 in processed form.The group of eight pictures could originally comprise eight videopictures, wherein then the decoder of FIG. 3 would be used withoutfourth filter level. If, however, the group of eight pictures is a groupof eight low-pass pictures, as they are used at the output 73 of thefourth level filter, the inventive MCTF decomposition can be used asbase motion predictor, enhancement motion predictor and as base motioncombiner or enhancement motion combiner, respectively.

Thus, generally, in this decomposition a group of 2^(n) pictures,(2^(n+1−2)) motion field descriptions, (2^(n−1)) residual pictures aswell as a single low-pass (or intra) picture are transmitted.

Both the base motion compensator and the enhancement motion compensatorare preferably controlled by a base control parameter and an enhancementcontrol parameter, respectively, to calculate an optimum combination ofa quantization parameter (1034 or 1036) and motion information, which isfixed in dependence on a certain rate. This is performed according tothe following method to obtain an optimum ratio with regard to a certainmaximum bit rate. Thus, it has been found out that for lower bit rates,which means relatively coarse quantization parameters, the motionvectors count more than for higher scaling layers, where relatively finequantization parameters are taken. Thus, for cases of coarse quantizingand thus lower bit rate, less motion data are calculated than for higherscaling layers. Thus, it is preferred in higher scaling layers to moveto sub-macroblock modes to calculate rather a lot of motion data for agood quality and for an optimum situation in the high bit rate, than inthe case of a lower bit rate, where the motion data proportionally countmore with regard to the residual data than in the case of a higherscaling layer. This will be discussed below.

Pictures A and B are given, which are either original pictures orpictures representing low-pass signals, which are generated in aprevious analysis stage. Further, the corresponding arrays of lumasamples a[ ] and b[ ] are provided. The motion description M_(i0) isestimated in a macroblock by macroblock way as follows:

For all possible macroblock and sub-macroblock partitions of amacroblock i within a picture B, the associated motion vectors

m _(i) =[m _(x) , m _(y)]

are determined by minimizing the Lagrange function

${m_{i} = {\arg \; {\min\limits_{m \in S}\left\{ {{D_{SAD}\left( {i,m} \right)} + {\lambda \cdot {R\left( {i,m} \right)}}} \right\}}}},$

wherein the deterioration term is given as follows:

${D_{SAD}\left( {i,m} \right)} = {\sum\limits_{{({x,y})} \in P}{{{b\left\lbrack {x,y} \right\rbrack} - {a\left\lbrack {{x - m_{x}},{y - m_{y}}} \right\rbrack}}}}$

Here, S specifies the motion vector search region within the referencepicture A. P is the region covered by the considered macroblockpartition or sub-macroblock partition. R(i,m) specifies the number ofbits, which are required to transmit all components of the motion vectorm, wherein λ is a fixed Lagrange multiplier.

First, the motion search proceeds across all integer sample exact motionvectors in the given search region S. Then, by using the best integermotion vector, the eight surrounding half sample exact motion vectorsare tested. Finally, by using the best half sample exact motion vector,the eight surrounding quarter sample exact motion vectors are tested.For the half and quarter half exact motion vector improvement, the term

a[x−m _(x) ,y−m _(y)]

is interpreted as interpolation operator.

Generally, the mode decision for the macroblock mode and thesub-macroblock mode follows the same approach. The mode p_(i), whichminimizes the following Lagrange function, is chosen from a given set ofpossible macroblock or sub-macroblock modes S_(mode):

$p_{i} = {\arg \; {\min\limits_{p \in S_{mode}}\left\{ {{D_{SAD}\left( {i,p} \right)} + {\lambda \cdot {R\left( {i,p} \right)}}} \right\}}}$

The deterioration term is given as follows:

${D_{SAD}\left( {i,p} \right)} = {\sum\limits_{{({x,y})} \in P}{{{b\left\lbrack {x,y} \right\rbrack} - {a\left\lbrack {{x - {m_{x}\left\lbrack {p,x,y} \right\rbrack}},{y - {m_{y}\left\lbrack {p,x,y} \right\rbrack}}} \right\rbrack}}}}$

wherein P specifies the macroblock or sub-macroblock region, and whereinm[p,x,y] is the motion vector which is associated to the macroblock orsub-macroblock mode p and the partition or sub-macroblock partition,which comprises the luma position (x,y).

The rate term R(i,p) represents the number of bits, which are associatedto the choice of the coder mode p. For the motion compensated codermodes, the same comprises the bits for the macroblock mode (ifapplicable), the sub-macroblock mode and modes (if applicable),respectively, and the motion vector and vectors, respectively. For theintra mode, the same comprises the bits for the macroblock mode and thearrays of quantized luma and chroma transformation coefficient levels.

The set of possible sub-macroblock modes is given by

{P _(—)8×8,P _(—)8×4,P _(—)4×8,P _(—)4×4}.

The set of possible macroblock modes is given by

{P _(—)16×16,P _(—)16×8,P _(—)8×16,P _(—)8×8,INTRA},

wherein the INTRA mode is only used when a motion field descriptionM_(i0) used for the prediction step is estimated.

The Lagrange multiplier λ is set according to the following equation independence on the base layer quantization parameter for the high-passpicture or pictures QP_(Hi) of the decomposition stage, for which themotion field is estimated:

λ=0.33·2̂(QP _(Hi)/3−4)

According to the invention, the decomposition scheme shown in FIG. 8 isused, which is assumed to enable a sensible compromise between temporalscalability and coder efficiency. The sequence of the original picturesis treated as sequence of input pictures A, B, A, B, A, B, . . . , A, B.Thus, this scheme provides a stage with optimum temporal scalability(equal distance between the low-pass pictures). The sequence of low-passpictures, which are used as input signal to all following decompositionstages, are treated as sequences of input pictures B, A, A, B, B, A . .. A, B, whereby the spaces between the low-pass pictures which aredecomposited, are kept small in the following two channel analysisscheme, as can be seen in FIG. 8.

In the following, reference will be made to preferred implementations ofboth the motion data intermediate layer prediction and the residual dataintermediate layer prediction with regard to FIGS. 6 a to 6 d. To obtaina spatial and an SNR scalability, respectively, basically, motion dataand texture data of a lower scaling layer are used for predictionpurposes for a higher scaling layer. Here, particularly in the spatialscalability, an upsampling of the motion data will be required, beforethey can be used as prediction for the decoding of spatial enhancementlayers. The motion prediction data of a base layer representation aretransmitted by using a subset of the existing B slice syntax of AVC.Preferably, two additional macroblock modes are introduced for codingthe motion field of an enhancement layer.

The first macroblock mode is “base_layer_mode” and the second mode isthe “qpel_refinement_mode”. For signalizing these two additionalmacroblock modes, two flags, namely the BLFlag and the QrefFlag areadded to the macroblock layer syntax, prior to the syntax elementmb_mode, as shown in FIG. 1. Thus, the first flag BLFlag 1098 signalizesthe base layer mode, while the other flag 1100 symbolizes the qpelrefinement mode. If such a flag is set, it has the value 1, and the datastream is as shown in FIG. 6 a. Thus, if the flag 1098 has the value 1,the flag 1100 and the syntax element macroblock mode 1102 have nofurther importance. If, however, the flag 1098 has the value zero, it isnot set, and the flag 1100 will be used, which, when it is set, againbridges the element 1102. If, however, both flags 1098 and 1100 have avalue zero, which means they are both not set, the macroblock mode willbe evaluated in the syntax element 1102.

When BLFlag=1, the base layer mode is used, and no further informationis used for the corresponding macroblock. This macroblock mode indicatesthat the motion prediction information including the macroblockpartition of the corresponding macroblock of the base layer is directlyused in that way for the enhancement layer. It should be noted that hereand in the whole specification, the term “base layer” is to represent anext lower layer with regard to the currently considered layer, whichmeans the enhancement layer. When the base layer represents a layer withhalf the spatial resolution, the motion vector field, which means thefield of motion vectors including the macroblock partition is scaledcorrespondingly, as it is illustrated in FIG. 6 b. In this case, thecurrent macroblock comprises the same region as an 8×8 sub-macroblock ofthe base layer motion field. Thus, if the corresponding base layermacroblock is coded in a direct, 16×16, 16×8 or 8×16 mode, or when thecorresponding base layer sub-macroblock is coded in the 8×8 mode or inthe direct 8×8 mode, the 16×16 mode is used for the current macroblock.If, on the other hand, the base layer sub-macroblock is coded in the8×4, 4×8 or 4×4 mode, the macroblock mode for the currentmacroblock=16×8, 8×16 or 8×8 (with all sub-macroblock modes=8×8). Whenthe base layer macroblock represents an INTRA macroblock, the currentmacroblock is set to INTRA BASE, which means that it is a macroblockwith a prediction from the base layer. For the macroblock partitions ofthe current macroblock, the same reference indices are used as for thecorresponding macroblock/sub-macroblock partitions of the base layerblock. The associated motion vectors are multiplied by a factor of 2.This factor applies for the situation shown in FIG. 6 b, where a baselayer 1102 comprises half the region and number of pixels, respectively,than the enhancement layer 1104. If the ratio of the spatial resolutionof the base layer to the spatial resolution of the enhancement layer isunequal to ½, corresponding scaling factors are used for the motionvector.

If, however, the flag 1098 equals zero and flag 1100 equals 1,macroblock mode qpel_refinement_mode is signalized. The flag 1100 ispreferably only present when the base layer represents a layer with halfthe spatial resolution of the current layer. Otherwise, the macroblockmode (qpel_refinement_mode) is not contained in the set of possiblemacroblock modes. This macroblock mode is similar to the base layermode. The macroblock partition as well as the reference indices and themotion vectors are derived as in the base layer mode. However, for everymotion vector, there is an additional quarter sample motion vectorrefinement −1.0 or +1 for every motion vector component, which istransmitted additionally and added to the derived motion vector.

When the flag 1098=zero and the flag 1100=zero, or when the flag 1100 isnot present, the macroblock mode as well as the corresponding referenceindices and motion vector differences are specified as usual. This meansthat the complete set of motion data is transmitted for the enhancementlayer the same way as for the base layer. However, according to theinvention, the possibility is provided to use the base layer motionvector as predictor for the current enhancement layer motion vector(instead of the spatial motion vector predictor). Thus, the list X(wherein X lies between 0 and 1) is to specify the reference index listof the considered motion vector. If all subsequent conditions are true,a flag MvPrdFlag is transmitted, as shown in FIG. 6 c, for every motionvector difference:

-   -   the base layer macroblock comprising the current        macroblock/sub-macroblock partitions is not coded in an INTRA        macroblock mode;    -   the base layer macroblock/sub-macroblock partition covering the        upper left sample of the current macroblock/sub-macroblock        partition uses the list X or a biprediction;    -   the list X reference index of the base layer        macroblock/sub-macroblock partition, which comprises the upper        left sample of the current macroblock/sub-macroblock partition        is equal to the list X reference index of the current        macroblock/sub-macroblock partition.

If the flag 1106 of FIG. 6 c is not present, or if this flag 1106=zero,the spatial motion vector predictor is specified as it is the case inthe standard AVC. Otherwise, when the flag 1106 is present and=1, thecorresponding base layer vector is used as motion vector predictor. Inthis case, the list X motion vector (wherein X=0 or 1) of the currentmacroblock/sub-macroblock partition is obtained by adding thetransmitted list X motion vector difference to the possibly scaled listX motion vector of the base layer macroblock/sub-macroblock partition.

Thus, the flags 1098, 1100 and 1106 represent together a possibility toimplement the motion data flag 1048 generally indicated in FIG. 1 a andgenerally a motion data control signal 1048, respectively. There are, ofcourse, different other possibilities of signalizing, wherein naturallya fixed agreement between transmitter and receiver can be used, whichallows a reduction of signalizing information.

In summary, a detailed implementation of the enhancement motioncompensator 1014 of FIG. 1 a and the enhancement motion datadetermination means 1078 of FIG. 2, respectively, is illustrated in moredetail with regard to FIGS. 1 e, 1 f and 1 g.

With reference to FIG. 1 e, it can be seen that the enhancement motioncompensator 1014 basically has to do two things. Thus, it first has tocalculate the enhancement motion data, typically the whole motionvectors and supply them to the enhancement motion predictor 1016, sothat the same can use these vectors in uncoded form to obtain theenhancement sequence of residual error pictures which are, in the priorart, typically performed adaptively and block by block. Another matter,however, is the enhancement motion data processing, which means how themotion data used for a motion-compensated prediction will now becompressed as much as possible and written into a bit stream. In orderfor something to be written into the bit stream, respective data have tobe brought to the enhancement picture coder 1028, as it is illustratedwith regard to FIG. 1 e. Thus, the enhancement motion data processingmeans 1014 b has the function to reduce the redundancy contained in theenhancement motion data, which the enhancement motion data calculationmeans 1014 a has determined, with regard to the base layer as much aspossible.

According to the invention, the base motion data or the upsampled basemotion data can be used both by the enhancement motion data calculationmeans 1014 a for calculating the actually to be used enhancement motiondata or can also be used only for enhancement motion data processing,which means for enhancement motion data compression, while they are ofno importance for the calculation of the enhancement motion data. Whilethe two possibilities 1.) and 2.) of FIG. 1 g show embodiments where thebase motion data and the upsampled base motion data are already used inthe enhancement motion data calculation, the embodiment 3.) of FIG. 1 bshows a case where information about the base motion data are not usedfor calculating the enhancement motion data but merely for coding andcapture of residual data, respectively.

FIG. 1 f shows the decoder side implementation of the enhancement motiondata determination means 1078, which has a control module 1078 a forblock by block control, which contains the signalizing information fromthe bit stream and from the enhancement picture decoder 1066,respectively. Further, the enhancement motion data determination means1078 comprises an enhancement motion data reconstruction means 1078 b,which actually determines the motion vectors of the enhancement motiondata field, either only by using the decoded base motion data or decodedupsampling base motion data or by combining information about thedecoded base motion data and from the residual data extracted from theenhancement motion decoder 1066 from the enhancement scaling layer 1004,which can then be used by the enhancement motion combiner 1076, whichcan be formed as common combiner to reverse the coder sidemotion-compensated prediction.

In the following, reference will be made to the different embodiments asthey are illustrated in FIG. 1 g in overview. As has already beenillustrated with regard to FIG. 6 a, the BLFlag 1098 signalizes acomplete takeover of the upscaled base motion data for the enhancementmotion prediction. In that case, means 1014 a is formed to completelytake over the base motion data and in the case of different resolutionsof the different layers, to take over the motion data in upscaled formand transmit them to means 1016, respectively. However, no informationabout motion fields or motion vectors is transmitted to the enhancementpicture coder. Instead, merely an individual flag 1098 is transmittedfor every block, either macroblock or a sub-macroblock.

On the decoder side, this means that means 1078 a of FIG. 1 f decodesthe flag 1098 for one block and, if it was active, uses the decoded basemotion data present from the base layer or the decoded upsampled basemotion data to calculate the enhancement motion data, which are thensupplied to block 1076. In this case, the means 1078 requires no motionvector residual data.

In the second embodiment of the present invention, which is signalizedby the flag QrefFlag 1100, the base motion vector is integrated into theenhancement motion data calculation, which is performed by means 1014 a.As it is illustrated in FIG. 1 g in portion 2.) and described above, themotion data calculation and the calculation of the motion vector m,respectively, is performed by searching the minimum of the term

(D+λR).

The difference between a block of a current picture B and a block of aprevious and/or later picture shifted by a certain potential motionvector is introduced into the distortion term D. The quantizationparameter of the enhancement picture coder indicated in FIG. 1 a by 1036is introduced into the factor λ. The term R provides information aboutthe number of bits used for coding a potential motion vector.

Normally, a search is performed among different potential motionvectors, wherein the distortion term D is calculated for every newmotion vector, and the rate term R is calculated, and wherein theenhancement quantization parameter 1036, which is preferably fixed, butcould also vary, is considered. The described sum term is evaluated fordifferent potential motion vectors, whereupon the motion vector is used,which provides the minimum result of the sum.

Now, according to the invention, the base motion vector of thecorresponding block from the base layer is also integrated into thisiterative search. If it fulfills the search criteria, again merely theflag 1100 has to be transmitted, but no residual values or anything elsefor this block has to be transmitted. Thus, when the base motion vectorfulfills the criterion (minimum of the previous term) for a block, means1014 a uses the base motion vector in order to transmit it to means1016. However, merely the flag 1100 is transmitted to the enhancementpicture coder.

On the decoder side, this means that the means 1078 a controls the means1078 b when it decodes the flag 1100 to determine the motion vector forthis block from the base motion data, since the enhancement picturedecoder has transmitted no residual data.

In a variation of the second embodiment, not only the base motion vectorbut also a plurality of base motion vectors derived from the base motionvector and (slightly) altered are integrated into the search. Dependingon the implementation, any component of the motion vector can beindependently increased or decreased by one increment, or be left thesame. This increment can represent a certain granularity of a motionvector, e.g. a resolution step, a half resolution step or a quarterresolution step. If such an altered base motion vector fulfills thesearch criteria, the alteration, which means the increment, which means+1, 0 or −1 is transmitted as “residual data”, additionally to the flag1100.

Activated by flag 1100, a decoder will then search for the increment inthe data stream and further recover the base motion vector or theupsampled base motion vector and combine the increment with thecorresponding base motion vector in block 1078 b, to obtain the motionvector for the corresponding block in the enhancement layer.

In the third embodiment, which is signalized by the flag 1106, thedetermination of the motion vectors can basically be performedarbitrarily. With regard to the full flexibility, the means 1014 a candetermine the enhancement motion data e.g. according to the minimizationobject mentioned in connection with the second embodiment. Then, thedetermined motion vector is used for coder side motion-compensatedprediction, without considering information from the base layer.However, in that case, the enhancement motion data processing 1014 a isformed to incorporate the base motion vectors into the motion vectorprocessing for redundancy reduction, which means prior to the actualarithmetic coding.

Thus, according to the standard H.264/AVC, a transmission of motionvector differences is performed, wherein differences between adjacentblocks are determined within a picture. In the implementation, thedifference can be formed between different adjacent blocks, to selectthen the smallest difference. Now, according to the invention, the basemotion vector for the corresponding block in a picture is incorporatedinto this search for the most favorable predictor for the motion vectordifference. If it fulfills the criterion that it provides the smallestresidual error value as predictor, this is signalized by the flag 1106and merely the residual error value is transmitted to block 1028. If thebase motion vector does not fulfill this criterion, the flag 1106 is notset, and a spatial motion vector difference calculation is performed.

For simpler coder implementations, however, instead of the iterativesearch, simply always and for adaptively determined blocks the basemotion vector, respectively, and an upsampled version of the same,respectively, can serve as predictor.

According to the invention, an intermediate layer prediction of residualdata will also be performed. This will be discussed below. When themotion information is changed from one layer to the next, it can befavorable or unfavorable to predict residual information and, in thecase of a MCTF decomposition, high-pass information of the enhancementlayer, respectively, from the base layer. When the motion vectors for ablock of the current layer are similar to the motion vectors of thecorresponding base layer and macroblock by macroblock to correspondingmotion vectors of the corresponding base layer, it is likely that thecoder efficiency can be increased when the coded base layer residualsignal (high-pass signal) is used as prediction for the enhancementresidual signal (enhancement high-pass signal), whereby only thedifference between the enhancement residual signal and the base layerreconstruction (line 1024 of FIG. 1 a) is coded. However, when themotion vectors are not similar, it is very unlikely that a prediction ofthe residual signal will improve the coder efficiency. Consequently, anadaptive approach is used for the prediction of the residual signal andhigh-pass signal, respectively. This adaptive approach, which meanswhether the intermediate layer predictor is active or not, can beperformed by an actual calculation of the benefit based on thedifference signal or can be performed based on an estimation, howdifferent the motion vector of a base scaling layer for a macroblock isto a corresponding macroblock in the enhancement scaling layer. If thedifference is smaller than a certain threshold, the intermediate layerpredictor is activated via the control line 130. However, if thedifference is higher than a certain threshold, the intermediate layerpredictor for this macroblock is deactivated.

A flag ResPrdFlag 1108 is transmitted. When the flag 1108=1, thereconstructed residual signal of the base layer is used as predictionfor the residual signal of the current macroblock of the enhancementlayer, wherein only an approximation of the difference between thecurrent residual signal of the enhancement layer and its base layerreconstruction will be coded. Otherwise, the flag 1108 does not exist orequals zero. Here, the residual signal of the current macroblock in theenhancement layer will then be coded without prediction from the baselayer.

When the base layer represents a layer with half the spatial resolutionof the enhancement layer, the residual signal is upsampled by using aninterpolation filter, before the upsampled residual signal of the baselayer is used as prediction signal. This filter is an interpolationfilter with six taps, such that for interpolating a value of the higherspatial resolution of the enhancement layer, which was not present inthe base layer due to the lower resolution, values from the surroundingsare used to obtain an interpolation result, which is as good aspossible.

If, however, values at the edge of a transformation block areinterpolated, and the interpolation filter would use only values ofanother transformation block for interpolation, it is preferred not todo this, but to synthesize the values of the interpolation filteroutside the considered block so that an interpolation with as littleartifacts as possible takes place.

Based on a so-called core experiment, it was found out that theintermediate layer prediction of motion and residual valuessignificantly improves the coder efficiency of the AVC based MCTFapproach. For certain test points, PSNR gains of more than 1 dB wereobtained. Particularly with very low bit rates for every spatialresolution (with the exception of the base layer), the improvement ofthe reconstruction quality was clearly visible.

Depending on the circumstances, the inventive method can be implementedin hardware or in software. The implementation can be performed on adigital storage medium, particularly a disc or CD with electronicallyreadable control signals, which can cooperate with a programmablecomputer system such that the method is performed. Thus, generally, theinvention consist also in a computer program product with a program codefor performing the inventive method stored on a machine readablecarrier, when the computer program product runs on a computer. In otherwords, the invention can also be realized as computer program with aprogram code for performing the method when the computer program runs ona computer.

Further, the present invention concerns a computer readable medium,whereon a scalable data stream with a first scaling layer and a secondscaling layer together with the associated control characters are storedfor the different decoder-side means. Thus, the computer readable mediumcan be a data carrier or the internet whereon a data stream istransmitted from a provider to a receiver.

While this invention has been described in terms of several preferredembodiments, there are alterations, permutations, and equivalents, whichfall within the scope of this invention. It should also be noted thatthere are many alternative ways of implementing the methods andcompositions of the present invention. It is therefore intended that thefollowing appended claims be interpreted as including all suchalterations, permutations, and equivalents as fall within the truespirit and scope of the present invention.

1. An apparatus for generating a coded video sequence having a basescaling layer and an enhancement scaling layer, comprising: a basemotion compensator for calculating base motion data, which indicate howa macroblock in a current picture has moved in relation to anotherpicture in a group of pictures; a base motion predictor for calculatinga base sequence of residual error pictures by using the base motiondata; a base picture coder formed to calculate the coded base scalinglayer from the base sequence of residual error pictures; an enhancementmotion compensator for determining enhancement motion data; anenhancement motion predictor for calculating an enhancement sequence ofresidual error pictures; an intermediate layer predictor for calculatingenhancement prediction residual error pictures by using the enhancementsequence of residual error pictures and by using information about thebase sequence of residual error pictures; and an enhancement picturecoder for coding the enhancement prediction residual error pictures toobtain the coded enhancement scaling layer.
 2. The apparatus accordingto claim 1, wherein the base picture coder is formed to perform aquantization with a base quantization parameter; wherein the enhancementpicture coder is formed to perform a quantization with an enhancementquantization parameter, wherein the enhancement quantization parametercan result in a finer quantization than the base quantization parameter;wherein the base picture coder is formed to reconstruct the basesequence of residual error pictures quantized with the firstquantization parameter to obtain a reconstructed base sequence andwherein the intermediate layer predictor is formed to calculate theenhancement prediction residual error pictures by using the enhancementsequence of residual error pictures and the reconstructed base sequenceof residual error pictures as information about the base sequence ofresidual error pictures.
 3. The apparatus according to claim 1, furthercomprising: a decimator for decimating a resolution of the group ofpictures, wherein the decimator is formed to provide a group of pictureswith a base resolution to the base compensator, which is smaller than anenhancement resolution of a group of pictures which is provided to theenhancement motion compensator; and an interpolator for spatiallyinterpolating the base sequence of residual error pictures or areconstructed base sequence of residual error pictures to obtain aninterpolated base sequence of residual error pictures, which can besupplied to the intermediate layer predictor as information about thebase sequence of residual error pictures.
 4. The apparatus according toclaim 3, further comprising a motion data upsampler to adapt the basemotion data to the enhancement resolution.
 5. The apparatus according toclaim 1, wherein the base motion predictor is formed to subtract amacroblock predicted by using the base motion data from a currentmacroblock to obtain a macroblock of a residual error picture of thebase sequence of residual error pictures.
 6. The apparatus according toclaim 1, wherein the intermediate layer predictor is formed to decideadaptively for blocks, whether a coder gain can be increased by applyinga prediction in comparison to a usage of a block from the enhancementsequence of residual error pictures.
 7. The apparatus according to claim1, wherein the intermediate layer predictor is formed to subtract amacroblock predicted by using a macroblock from the base sequence ofresidual error pictures or the reconstructed base sequence of residualerror pictures or the interpolated base sequence of residual errorpictures or the reconstructed and interpolated base sequence of residualerror pictures from a current macroblock of the enhancement sequence ofresidual error pictures to obtain a macroblock of an enhancementprediction residual error picture.
 8. The apparatus according to claim1, wherein the enhancement motion compensator is formed to use the basemotion data or scaled motion data in dependence on a mode controlsignal.
 9. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the base scalinglayer has a lower resolution than the enhancement scaling layer, andwherein the enhancement motion compensator is formed to determineresidual motion data in dependence on a control signal, and wherein theenhancement picture coder is formed to code the residual motion datainto the enhancement scaling layer.
 10. A method for generating a codedvideo sequence having a base scaling layer and an enhancement scalinglayer, comprising: calculating base motion data, which indicate how amacroblock in a current picture has moved in relation to another picturein a group of pictures; calculating a base sequence of residual errorpictures by using the base motion data; coding information about thebase sequence of residual error pictures to calculate the coded basescaling layer from the base sequence of residual error pictures;determining enhancement motion data; calculating an enhancement sequenceof residual error pictures; calculating enhancement prediction residualerror pictures by using the enhancement sequence of residual errorpictures and by using information about the base sequence of residualerror pictures; and coding the enhancement prediction residual errorpictures to obtain the coded enhancement scaling layer.
 11. An apparatusfor decoding a coded video sequence having a base scaling layer and anenhancement scaling layer, comprising: a base picture decoder configuredfor decoding the base scaling layer to obtain a decoded base sequence ofresidual error pictures and base layer motion data, the base layermotion data indicating how a macroblock in a current picture has movedin relation to another picture in a group of pictures; an enhancementpicture decoder configured for decoding the enhancement scaling layer toobtain enhancement layer prediction residual error pictures; anintermediate layer combiner configured for combining the decoded basesequence of residual error pictures or an interpolated base sequence ofresidual error pictures with the enhancement layer prediction residualerror pictures to obtain an enhancement sequence of residual errorpictures; and an enhancement motion combiner configured for obtaining asequence of pictures of the enhancement scaling layer by using theenhancement sequence of residual error pictures and enhancement layermotion data, wherein the pictures of the base scaling layer have a lowerresolution than the pictures of the enhancement scaling layer, andwherein the apparatus further comprises a motion data upsampler toconvert the base motion data to the enhancement resolution to obtain theenhancement motion data or a prediction of the enhancement motion data.12. The apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the base picturedecoder is formed to dequantize by using a base quantization parameterwhich is larger than an enhancement quantization parameter, and whereinthe intermediate layer combiner is formed to use the decoded basesequence of residual error pictures or an interpolated version of thesame.
 13. The apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the coded videosequence has residual motion data, and having a motion data determinerto combine the residual motion data with the prediction of theenhancement motion data to determine the enhancement motion data. 14.The apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the base motion combinerand the enhancement motion combiner are formed to perform only aninverse prediction operation or an inverse prediction operation and aninverse update operation.
 15. The apparatus according to claim 11,wherein the coded video sequence has enhancement motion data formacroblocks, wherein a motion data control signal is associated to theenhancement motion data, which indicates whether a prediction signal isunderlying the enhancement motion data, which is derived from a scaledmotion vector of the base motion data, or whether a prediction signal isunderlying the enhancement motion data, which is not derived from thebase motion data, and wherein the apparatus is formed to read the motiondata control signal and to calculate the enhancement motion data independence on the control signal by using the scaled version of the basemotion data.
 16. The apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the codedvideo sequence for macroblocks has an intermediate layer predictioncontrol signal in the enhancement scaling layer, which indicates whethera macroblock has been generated due to an intermediate layer predictionor without an intermediate layer prediction, and wherein the apparatusis further formed to activate the intermediate layer combiner only whenthe intermediate layer prediction control signal indicates anintermediate layer prediction for a considered macroblock.
 17. Apparatusaccording to claim 11, further comprising a base motion combiner toobtain a sequence of pictures of the base scaling layer by using thebase motion data and the decoded base sequence of residual errorpictures, wherein the base motion combiner and the enhancement motioncombiner are formed to perform an inverse prediction operation and aninverse update operation.
 18. A method for decoding a coded videosequence with a base scaling layer and an enhancement scaling layer,comprising: decoding, by a base picture decoder, the base scaling layerto obtain a decoded base sequence of residual error pictures and baselayer motion data, the base layer motion data indicating how amacroblock in a current picture has moved in relation to another picturein a group of pictures; decoding, by an enhancement picture decoder, theenhancement scaling layer to obtain enhancement prediction layerresidual error pictures; combining, by an intermediate layer combiner,the decoded base sequence of residual error pictures or an interpolatedbase sequence of residual error pictures with the enhancement layerprediction residual error pictures to obtain an enhancement sequence ofresidual error pictures; and performing, by an enhancement motioncombiner, an enhancement motion combination to obtain a sequence ofpictures of the enhancement scaling layer by using the enhancementsequence of residual error pictures and enhancement motion data, whereinthe pictures of the base scaling layer have a lower resolution than thepictures of the enhancement scaling layer, and wherein the methodfurther comprises converting the base motion data to the enhancementresolution to obtain the enhancement motion data or a prediction of theenhancement motion data.
 19. Non-transitory storage medium having storedthereon a computer-readable storage medium encoded with a computerprogram, causing a computer to execute a method for generating a codedvideo sequence having a base scaling layer and an enhancement scalinglayer, comprising: calculating base motion data, which indicate how amacroblock in a current picture has moved in relation to another picturein a group of pictures; calculating a base sequence of residual errorpictures by using the base motion data; coding information about thebase sequence of residual error pictures to calculate the coded basescaling layer from the base sequence of residual error pictures;determining enhancement motion data; calculating an enhancement sequenceof residual error pictures; calculating enhancement prediction residualerror pictures by using the enhancement sequence of residual errorpictures and by using information about the base sequence of residualerror pictures; and coding the enhancement prediction residual errorpictures to obtain the coded enhancement scaling layer. 20.Non-transitory storage medium having stored thereon a computer-readablestorage medium encoded with a computer program, causing a computer toexecute a method for decoding a coded video sequence with a base scalinglayer and an enhancement scaling layer, the method comprising: decodingthe base scaling layer to obtain a decoded base sequence of residualerror pictures and base layer motion data, the base layer motion dataindicating how a macroblock in a current picture has moved in relationto another picture in a group of pictures; decoding the enhancementscaling layer to obtain enhancement layer prediction residual errorpictures; combining the decoded base sequence of residual error picturesor an interpolated base sequence of residual error pictures with theenhancement layer prediction residual error pictures to obtain anenhancement sequence of residual error pictures; and performing anenhancement motion combination to obtain a sequence of pictures of theenhancement scaling layer by using the enhancement sequence of residualerror pictures and enhancement motion data, wherein the pictures of thebase scaling layer have a lower resolution than the pictures of theenhancement scaling layer, and wherein the method further comprisesconverting the base motion data to the enhancement resolution to obtainthe enhancement motion data or a prediction of the enhancement motiondata.